(SITie, PRACTICE 
OF FRIENDSHIP 

STEWART -WRIGHT 




Class Jl_6_23__ 
Book_4'_2JLg_ 
OofpghtN? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 



The Practice of Friendship 



Studies in Personal Evangelism with 

Men of the United States Army and Navy 

in American Training Camps 



George Stewart, Jr., Lieutenant Infantry, U. S. A. 

Henry B. Wright, Camp Director 

of Religious Work, Army Y. M. C. A. 




ASSOCIATION PRESS 

Nbw Yoek: 347 Madison Avenub 
1918 






Copyright, 1918, by 

The International Committee of 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



DEC 18 (918 



©CI.A5U6948 



J 



No longer do I call you servants; for the servant hnoweth not what his 
Lord doeth: but I have called you friends. John 15: I5» 



To 
RICHARD C. MORSE, 

whose expertness in friendship through a half-century, as 
General Secretary of the International Committee, has pre- 
pared the way for all those who today minister to the Army 
and Navy through the Young Men's Christian Association. 



Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
ye did it unto me. Matt. 25:40. 



PREFACE 

This book is based upon experiences in the work of the 
Army Young Men's Christian Association at Plattsburg, 
from May 10 to August 15, 1917, with the First Reserve 
Officers' Training School ; and at Camp Devens, from August 
28, 1917, to July 15, 1918, with the 76th Division of the 
National Army. Professor Wright was Director of Re- 
ligious Work at both camps. Of the three men who have 
been his associates, two — Elmore M. McKee and George 
Stewart Jr. — resigned to enlist in the Army, the former 
in August, 191 7, the latter in November of the same year. 
Rev. William D. Barnes joined the staff at Devens in No- 
vember, 1917, and he and Professor Wright are at present 
in charge of the work there. 

The chapters on the Hospital and on Troop Trains were 
written by Lieutenant McKee and Secretary Barnes respec- 
tively. The rest of the book is the joint product of Pro- 
fessor Wright and Lieutenant Stewart. 

Camp Devens, Mass., 
August 31, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

PART I. PERSONAL EVANGELISM THROUGH THE 

PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP — GUIDING 

PRINCIPLES. 

PAGE 

I. Personal Evangelism — A Definition 3 

II. The Nature of the Evangel for Men of the Army 

and Navy 11 

1. It must not dodge the issue of the compatibility 

of Christianity with righteous war .... 11 

III. The Nature of the Evangel for Men of the Army 

and Navy (continued) 2J 

2. It must not be a reduced Christianity .... 27 

IV. The Program of the Evangel 4 1 

V. Characteristics of the Men to Whom We Are to 

Minister 48 

VI. What Is a Point of Contact? 55 

VII. How to Begin and of What to Beware .... 58 

VIII. Expert Friendship the Key to Method in Personal 

Evangelism 61 

IX. The Goal of Expert Friendship 70 

PART II. THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP. 

I. Five Outstanding Features 75 

1. Expert Friendship through the Ministry of Ideas 

rather than Sensations 75 

2. Expert Friendship through Direct Personal Ap- 

peal 78 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

3. Expert Friendship through Personal Example . 81 

4. Expert Friendship through Uniformity ... 83 

5. Expert Friendship through Sacrifice .... 85 

II. Expert Friendship within the Camp Circle — In- 
side the Y M C A Building 91 

1. Expert Friendship at the Counter 91 

2. Expert Friendship through the Writing-Desk . 94 

3. Expert Friendship through Formal Religious 

Services 96 

4. Expert Friendship after the Address .... 99 

5. Expert Friendship through Discussion and Bible 

Groups and Inner Circles 101 

6. Expert Friendship through the Upper Room . 104 

7. Expert Friendship through the Ministry of Po- 

licing 107 

III. Expert Friendship Within the Camp Circle — 

Outside the Y M C A Building . . . .110 

1. Expert Friendship on the Night of the Recruit's 

Arrival in Camp no 

2. Expert Friendship through Recreational and So- 

cial Leadership 1 13 

3. Expert Friendship through Educational Leader- 

ship US 

4. Expert Friendship in the Barracks and at Mess 117 

5. Expert Friendship at the Hospital 120 

6. Expert Friendship with Detached Units and with 

the Development Battalions 125 

7. Expert Friendship on Hikes and Troop Trains . 128 

IV. Expert Friendship Outside the Camp Circle . . 134 

1. Expert Friendship in the Executive Office . . 134 

2. Expert Friendship with Civilian Help .... 137 

3. Expert Friendship on Railroad Trains . . . .138 

4. Expert Friendship with the Ford Car .... 142 

5. Expert Friendship Entering the Fourth Week . 144 



PART I 

PERSONAL EVANGELISM THROUGH THE 
PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Guiding Principles 



MY TASK 

To love some one more dearly ev'ry day, 
To help a wand'ring child to find his way, 
To ponder o'er a noble thought and pray, 
And smile when evening falls. 
This is my task. 

To follow truth as blind men long for light 
To do my best from dawn of day till night 
To keep my heart fit for His holy sight 
And answer when He calls. 
This is my task. 

M. L. Ray. 



Copyright property of Lorenz Publishing Co. International 
copyright secured. 



CHAPTER I 
PERSONAL EVANGELISM — A DEFINITION 

Personal Work, Individual Work, Personal 

Interview, Christian Interview, 

Personal Evangelism 

There are few phrases more constantly on the lips of 
Christian workers than those which relate to the effort to 
win individuals by personal appeal to the acknowledgment 
of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Master of their lives. Such 
expressions as " Personal Work," " Individual Work," 
* Personal Interview," " Christian Interview," " Personal 
Evangelism," are employed synonymously by the vast major- 
ity of men. We are told that a certain Army Secretary is 
a splendid personal worker. The monthly report from his 
building records two hundred personal interviews. Both 
of these claims may be literally and essentially correct. 
The Secretary knows the majority of the men in the regi- 
ment by name. He can give the date and place and sub- 
ject of each one of his two hundred personal talks. But 
further investigation often reveals no evidence of trans- 
formed lives or spiritual advance in the little circle to 
which he ministered. Individual work has been done, per- 
sonal interviews have been held, but no evangelism has taken 
place. 

The truth of the matter is that the most commonly 
employed of these phrases — " Personal Work " and " Indi- 
vidual Work " — are terms far too general and too indefi- 
nite. A man who persuades another to drink, steal, or 

3 



4 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

commit adultery is doing " personal work " or " individual 
work " of a definite kind, and, in most cases, of a most 
effective sort, for he wins his man by personal interview 
and persuasion to the object which he had in mind, and the 
victim is generally a conspicuous witness to the type of 
message which was preached — more than can be said of 
the results of some distinctly Christian personal effort. 

When phrases constantly employed by Christian men and 
women can lend themselves with literal accuracy to effort 
so far afield from what was really intended, it is clear that 
they must be discarded for others which will define with 
greater exactness the real nature of the work in hand. 
Many use the phrase " Christian Interview." Here again 
we are open to the charge of indefiniteness. A " Christian 
Interview " may or may not issue in real spiritual evan- 
gelism. A talk about the weather between two persons 
who are Christians could quite logically from one point of 
view be classed as a Christian interview. So could a talk 
on the same subject in a Y M C A building between a Chris- 
tian and a non-Christian, provided the object was to make 
a pleasant environment for the latter and to keep him out 
of temptation's reach. And so could persuasive appeals to 
men to attend church services, or random discussions regard- 
ing theology, or talks about the achievements of the Y M 
C A overseas, or decisions to renounce bad habits or to 
form good ones. 

None of these things are real " Personal Evangelism," 
though some of them may form the indispensable back- 
ground for it. The essential element in Personal Evangel- 
ism is a persuasive spiritual appeal which introduces a man 
to Jesus Christ, endeavors to persuade him to take Jesus 
Christ as his Saviour and Lord, and seeks to induce him 
who was formerly " consciously wrong, divided, and un- 
happy" to become "consciously right, united, and happy" 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM A DEFINITION 5 

through a deliberate act of his will in laying hold of a divine 
power outside himself. 

The Dynamic Which Personal Evangelism Brings 
— Why Necessary 

In the stimulating environment of an army camp or a 
naval training station, when men are face to face with the 
solemn issues of life and death, it is not a difficult task to 
persuade individuals or masses of men to register forward 
steps in personal living. Decisions to renounce bad habits, 
such as drinking, narcotics, immorality in thought, speech, 
or act, gambling, or personal grudges, are in general easily 
obtained either by word of mouth or in writing. Neither 
is it difficult to obtain decisions to form good habits, such 
as daily Bible study, daily prayer, regular attendance at 
church or Bible class, systematic saving and giving of 
money, regularity in home correspondence, or practical 
service of one's fellows. The difficult task is not to get 
men to make decisions in their own strength. Such moves 
are generally flattering to the pride of the maker. Humanly 
speaking, the impossible thing is to get men to keep true 
to their decisions after they have once made them. Thus, 
it is not difficult to get almost any soldier or sailor to join 
the Pocket Testament League. The difficulty is to get him 
to carry his Bible and read it. 

Far too many of the Christian interviews in our war 
work centers which issue in forward step decisions are 
fruitless for just this reason. Personal Work has been done, 
a Christian Interview has been held, a Forward Step 
Decision has been registered, but the man is left helpless. 
There has been no real spiritual evangelism. The good 
which in all honesty he would, he does not, and what he 
would not, that he does. For him, in his hour of need, 



6 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

there was no friend who knew how to introduce him to 
the dynamic of divine help outside himself which would 
make of him a new creature — and to show him how to lay- 
hold of this by the act of complete surrender of the human 
will. 

The Types of Decision with Which Personal 
Evangelism Is Concerned 

Personal evangelism, dealing as it does with a dynamic 
which enables men and which changes life, is not so much 
concerned with securing those forward step decisions which 
are manifestations of a changed purpose, as it is with regis- 
tering another more fundamental sort which will insure that 
change of purpose. Daily Bible study and prayer, attend- 
ance at church and Bible class, regard for home and com- 
rades, are inevitable issues of a real change of heart, not 
the necessary preludes to it. A man whose purposes have 
been transformed by divine grace and who knows the power 
and fellowship of Christ lays hold upon prayer, Bible study, 
the Church and its institutions as instinctively and uncon- 
sciously as he breathes. But many a man has read his 
Bible and prayed regularly, has attended church services 
with an unbroken record, has given of his time and sub- 
stance in the service of mankind, and yet has never laid 
hold of the dynamic which transforms life. 

Personal evangelism is concerned with three decisions in 
each individual life and in the order named: 

1. Restitution for wrongs committed in the past. 

2. Absolute surrender of the human will to God for the 
present and future. 

3. Witnessing to the power of God which has come into 
one's life as a result of this surrender. 

Surrender cannot precede restitution nor can witnessing 



-ERSONAL EVANGELISM A DEFINITION 7 

jrecede surrender. When men pretend to surrender abso- 
utely to God's will in renunciation of sin, without having 
nade an honest attempt to make restitution for wrongs 
ione in the past to God or man, they are trying to deceive 
jod. And when they attempt to witness to a power which 
hey have not received they are trying to deceive men. 

Restitution — Absolute Surrender to God's Will — 
Witnessing 

Before life can be transformed he who is consciously 
vrong must, by the act of restitution for that wrong, become 
consciously right. " Behold, the half of my goods I give to 
:he poor and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man 
[ restore fourfold," cried Zacchaeus in honest repentance 
vhen his sins were laid bare in the presence of Jesus. And 
he Lord replied, " To-day is salvation come to this house." 
Restitution must go as far as the wrong has gone. " If 
rou have lost the blessing, go back and search for it and 
fou will find it where you lost it. Just there and nowhere 
else," says MacNeil. If I have wronged God, as in secret 
»in, I must make confession and restitution to God and to 
Bim alone. If I have wronged some man, that man it is 
md no other whom I must satisfy; if two men, the reso- 
lution must include both. If I have wronged a commu- 
lity, I must accept that community's penalty for my mis- 
demeanor, no matter at what cost to myself. The grain 
)f wheat that is to bring forth much fruit must first fall 
nto the earth before it dies. What the earth is to the wheat 
>eed, humble restitution for wrong is to the human soul. It 
Is the soil in which self dies to live again in fruit bearing. 
Without it the human soul, like the wheat grain, abides 
ilone by itself unchanged. 

But while restitution closes all accounts with the past, 



8 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

it does not insure a man from falling in the future. One 
may settle all his old debts today and yet secretly reserve 
for himself the right to run into debt on the morrow. The 
grain of wheat must not only fall into the ground. It must 
die. Unless it die, it abides by itself alone unchanged. The 
second step in the transformation of a life is absolute sur- 
render to God's will of the further desire for the particu- 
lar conscious wrong for which restitution has already been 
made — not fifty per cent, surrender, nor seventy-five per 
cent., nor ninety per cent., nor ninety-five per cent., nor 
ninety-nine per cent., but one hundred per cent, surrender 
by the human will — unconditional and absolute — the death 
of that particular desire. He who prays, " Lord, make me 
pure " with the secret reservation, " but not now," abides 
by himself alone unchanged. He who prays, " Lord make 
me pure here and now, cost what it may " — and means it 
even at any cost — sees God. 

He who has once found God along the pathway of the 
two successive steps of restitution for a conscious sin in 
the past and absolute surrender to God's will of that par- 
ticular unholy desire for the future, has little difficulty at 
the start with the third step in the transformation of a 
human soul : namely, witnessing. " We cannot but speak 
the things which we saw and heard," cried Peter and John. 
" One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see," 
said the man from the pool of Siloam. It is an easy task to 
witness to what one really possesses. Yet the decision 
to confess constantly in Christ, to testify daily to the power 
of an endless life, is absolutely essential for the growth of 
any soul. " For with the heart man believeth unto right- 
eousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
vation." It is the only sure test that some new stagnation 
and blight of sin has not attacked the life of that soul. 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM A DEFINITION 9 

When lips are dumb and spiritual things seem unreal, and 
3od far away, when the word spoken falls powerless and 
ife droops and sways, tossed to and fro on every wind of 
loctrine, then must we beware. The blade is withering, sin 
las entered in, and only a seed falling again in the soil of 
lumble restitution and dying the death of absolute renuncia- 
;ion, can blossom again into the life that shall be eternal. 

Why Christian Workers Do Not Do More Personal 
Evangelism 

The physical price of personal evangelism is a heavy one. 
Some men are not willing to pay that price. It is right that 
:he cost should be great. To render ordinary social service 
Dr to engage in ordinary social conversation make slight 
demands upon us. But to work with God as His humble 
nstrument in the act of re-creation of that most delicate of 
ill instruments, the human soul, must require no less than 
:onsummate tact, resolute courage, infinite love, and supreme 
physical sacrifice. Power must go out from us. 

Again, success in personal evangelism is wholly dependent 
ipon right living. Only the pure in heart see God. Only 
:he man with a consistent life behind his words can work 
with power. There is a very definite connection between 
Durity of life and power of spiritual achievement. Moody 
ised to speak about factories which were to let with or 
without power. Men's lives are in just such a condition. 
The stream of power is constantly flowing by them. Will 
they harness it and put it to work? Some men who should 
be mighty factors in personal evangelism are compelled to 
remain silent and impotent, hearing a voice say to them: 
r< Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart 
is not right before God." 



io THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 



The Fundamental Principle Underlying Personal 
Evangelism 

Personal evangelism makes the most exacting demands 
upon its practitioners of any form of human effort. Enthu- 
siasm may be aroused by cold-blooded men with evil motives. 
Patriotism may be excited by impersonal means. Public 
evangelism may even achieve a certain measure of appar- 
ent success in the hands of a false prophet, through shrewd- 
ness in the application of the laws of social psychology to 
a crowd. But the personal evangelist must himself first 
incarnate what he wishes to propagate. He cannot give his 
message through the impersonal printed page. He cannot 
even choose the time and season for it. He cannot delegate 
it to some one else. His task is to hand on, as it were by 
contagion, a certain genius of life which he has first incar- 
nated in himself. The fundamental principle underlying 
personal evangelism is this : " You cannot give it unless 
you have it." 



CHAPTER II 

THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL FOR MEN OF 
THE ARMY AND NAVY 

jr. It must not dodge the issue of the compatibility of 
Christianity and righteous war. 

Righteous War — a Definition 

The Army and Navy Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion does not employ on its staff Secretaries who believe 
that Christianity and righteous war are incompatible. This 
requirement does not mean that employes of the War Work 
Council must hold the German view that war in the gen- 
eral sense " is a biological necessity — an ordinance of God 
for the weeding out of incompetent individuals and states — 
what might be called the doctrine of the wholesomeness, the 
desirability of ever-recurrent war." Peace on earth and 
good will among men is the ultimate Christian ideal for 
human society. The War Work Council does not require 
that its Secretaries approve all kinds of war — that, for 
example, of wanton aggression, in which the German Empire 
is at present engaged. Regarding this particular type of 
warfare the Christian teaching is unequivocal. " They that 
take the sword shall perish with the sword." " Woe unto 
the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must 
needs be that the occasions come, but woe unto that man 
through whom the occasion cometh." Neither is it required 
that War Work Secretaries shall approve a right war carried 

ii 



12 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

on in a wrong way — as, for example, in a spirit of hatred. 
Here again there can be no mistaking the teaching of our 
Lord. " Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, 
Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in dan- 
ger of the judgment : but I say unto you that every one who 
is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; 
and . . . whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger 
of the hell of fire." War from the Christian standpoint is 
always a pathological expedient, a last resort, like the sur- 
geon's knife. Its sole object is the arrest of malignant and 
death-dealing cancers in the body of nations, and it looks 
solely to the restoration of the normal life of peace in the 
patient. But it should never be forgotten that it is the 
peace-makers, not the peace-talkers, who are characterized 
by our Lord as sons of God. We are to resist unto blood 
striving against sin. Once it be demonstrated that sur- 
gery is the only means of arresting the advances of the 
death-dealing sore, it profits not at all to surmise what might 
have been accomplished if less heroic measures had been 
taken in the earlier stages of the disease. It were worse 
than folly to attempt to apply remedial measures effective 
only in the earlier stages. If the surgeon alone can check 
the cancer's spread, then recourse to the knife is not a mat- 
ter of option, but of duty. And so in extreme crises in the 
life of nations, peace-making through war is not a matter 
of choice. It becomes a Christian obligation. As a member 
of the bar has pointed out, a war by humanity to end war 
is no more impossible or inconsistent than Jesus' conquest 
of death by dying. 

War is as comprehensive a term as politics. It can be 
wrong and it can be right. Because many brands of politics 
and many politicians are bad, it does not follow that we 
shall entirely renounce governments and governors. On the 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 13 

contrary, we shall dare to try to make bad politics and bad 
politicians good. And the American Nation, under the 
inspired leadership of its honored President, is engaged at 
this very hour in an attempt equally daring — the attempt 
to Christianize every phase of a righteous war waged to 
save the very life of democracy. He whose faith is too 
small to believe that this can be accomplished or to throw 
himself without reserve into what is in many of its phases 
a pioneer adventure, has no place in an army or navy camp. 

There are some types of war and some types of religion 
which do not go together. The professional soldier is per- 
fectly right in asserting that the brand of Christianity 
preached by the pacifist would make a laughing-stock out 
of the science of military tactics and result in inevitable 
defeat. The primary object in shooting a rifle or a machine 
gun is not that the soldier may simply go through the motions 
and get killed, any more than the object of a surgeon in oper- 
ating on a cancer is to contract the disease himself and 
make a vicarious sacrifice of his own life. This latter result 
is always possible, but it is the business of all concerned to 
reduce the chance of it to a minimum. The business of a 
professional soldier is to render his enemy harmless at the 
earliest possible moment and with the least possible relative 
loss to himself. 

On the other hand, the religious leader is just as right in 
asserting that the brand of war which issues in atrocities 
and rape and revenge and hymns of hate must part com- 
pany once and for all with Christianity. But why should 
we judge all war by discredited warriors any more than we 
judge surgery by quack surgeons? The real surgeon cuts 
quickly and he cuts deeply. He destroys just as much 
tissue and only as much as will not respond to treatment. 
But he sees to it that every bit which will not respond is 



14 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

removed. He wishes to spare his patient the necessity of 
a later repetition of the operation. A surgeon who for the 
mere love of cutting removed more tissue than was diseased 
would be at once classed as a degenerate and would not long 
be entrusted with the knife. Neither soldiering nor Chris- 
tianity should be judged by distortions. 

War and Christianity can never be separated without 
danger to both. War without Christianity is hell. Chris- 
tianity holding aloof from righteous war is cowardice and 
selfishness. True Christianity never weakened the efficiency 
of any soldier engaged in a righteous war in a righteous way. 
There is no power like that in a blow from one who knows 
that he is in the right. 

What Jesus Had to Say Regarding the Use of 
Force and the Taking of Human Life 

It is beside the point to argue that because Jesus did not 
Himself found a military monarchy He disapproved of the 
resort to arms in defense of humanity. We must not for- 
get that He lived His life through in an era of universal 
peace. Rome in the lifetime of Jesus, as Professor Bacon 
has pointed out, gave complete religious liberty. Had Jesus 
taken up arms it would not have been in defense of His 
cause, but in a war of aggression, which He specifically 
denounced. That He foresaw that the spread of the prin- 
ciples of equality, justice, and liberty which He proclaimed, 
would be responsible for more wars than any other one 
cause — an indisputable fact in the light of history — is 
apparent from a memorable saying : " I came not to bring 
peace, but a sword." Jesus' use of physical force in the 
cleansing of the Temple and in the blasting of the fig tree, 
His instructions to His disciples on the night of His arrest, 

And he that hath none, let him sell his cloak and buy a 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 15 

sword," His employment of vigorous moral force in the 
invectives against scribes and Pharisees, His constant use 
and sanction of judgments involving physical force, such as 
" He will miserably destroy those miserable men " ; " It were 
better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his 
neck and he were cast into the sea " ; " But the king was 
wroth; and he sent his armies and destroyed those murder- 
ers, and burned their city " ; " Every plant which my heavenly 
Father planted not, shall be rooted up " — only serve to reen- 
f orce what Professor Bosworth has so well stated : 

" The Christian witness in war asserts himself resolutely 
against the enemy with an invincible good will. He brings 
all the force of his being, physical and spiritual, to bear 
against the enemy with an unfailing good will. Force is 
absolutely non-moral. It is no more bad or good than is 
electricity. Moral quality appears only in the disposition 
of the man who uses force. Force may be applied to the 
mutilation of the body as it is by the surgeon, or to the 
destruction of the physical life, as it is by the executioner, 
and there is no immorality in the act so long as the dis- 
position of him who performed it is free from all ill will." 

As Sherwood Eddy has shown, the Old Testament forbids 
private murder in the sixth commandment, but the death 
penalty is enjoined six times in the chapter of the law 
immediately following. 

Professor Fosdick has pointed out that the real essence 
of Jesus' teaching regarding the taking of life in a right- 
eous war of defense must be sought, not in isolated texts 
which are liable to misinterpretation when quoted out of 
context, but in such a parable as that of the Good Shepherd. 
The good shepherd sees the wolf coming and he does not 
flee. He lays down his life, if necessary, righting for the 
sheep. But his object is not merely to make a sacrifice of 



16 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

his life. His object is to save the sheep. This involves 
the use of force on his part and the employing of every 
effort of which he is capable to either capture or kill the 
wolf. The shepherd is under no illusion that the wolf will 
be so impressed by his vicarious sacrifice in lying down and 
letting his life be taken that the ravenous beast, whose 
appetite has once been whetted with blood, will give up his 
previous intention of devouring the sheep after the shepherd 
has been disposed of. A shepherd who, without resisting, 
simply let the wolf kill him and did not employ every means 
in his power to dispose of the wolf, would be simply post- 
poning for fifteen minutes the inevitable destruction of the 
sheep. If the sheep are to be killed anyway, what was 
gained by the vicarious death of the shepherd fifteen minutes 
earlier ? 

It is not true, as often asserted, that the Sermon on the 
Mount forbids the use of force and the destruction of human 
life. The facts are that the Sermon on the Mount con- 
tains two, at first sight, contradictory teachings regarding the 
use of force. The first, familiar to all, is the injunction 
" Resist not evil." The second, no less mandatory but for 
some reason seldom quoted, is the implication that false 
prophets with the wolfish spirit are to be treated like cor- 
rupt trees that bring forth evil fruit. They are to be hewn 
down and cast into the fire. In reality there is no contra- 
diction between these two passages. Non-resistance is not 
only the ideal way but it is also the only effective, practical 
method for two parties, both of whom are living within the 
kingdom of God, to settle their differences. Witness the 
league to settle disputes by arbitration between Great Britain 
and the United States. But just as surely, not only the sole 
practical way but also the ideal way, divinely sanctioned, 
for a party living within the kingdom to act when attacked 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 17 

by false prophets from outside — men with the instincts 
and methods of ravening wolves — is, as soon as they are 
known by their fruits to be corrupt trees, to hew them down 
and cast them into the fire. Surely the League to Enforce 
Peace would be hollow mockery were it not right for the 
international police force to employ force to enforce peace. 
The second injunction of Jesus is no less binding than the 
first. Indeed the Golden Rule, far from forbidding right- 
eous war in defense of human rights, would seem to demand 
it. We are told to do unto others as we would have them 
do unto us — not to refrain from doing. No one has seen 
this more clearly than Dr. Bridgman: 

" I think I see a literal application of the Golden Rule to 
my present attitude toward war. If I were a madman who 
had already killed helpless women and children, I should 
want myself to be killed before I did further harm, pro- 
vided I could not otherwise be restrained from my devas- 
tating career. If I happened to be one of the leaders of 
the German people today, sharing in the duplicity, inhu- 
manity, and lust for power that have marked the foreign 
policy of those same leaders, I should want, provided I 
still kept the Spirit of Jesus, to have America enter the war 
against Germany just as she has done." 

Over-emphasis of the Awfulness of Death 
Pagan not Christian 

The taking of human life in the spirit of hate is a ter- 
rible thing. It is murder. But to the Christian, even in 
murder itself, the mere taking of the human life is not the 
part that is terrible. " Be not afraid of them that kill 
the body but are not able to kill the soul," said He who 
abolished death and brought life and immortality to light, 
" but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell." The terrible part in murder, to the Chris- 



18 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

tian, is the fact that the taking of the life was in the spirit 
of hate, with the resulting effect on the soul of the murderer. 
We can imagine a pagan refusing even to sacrifice his own 
life, let alone taking the life of another. For him death 
ends all. Not so the Christian. In his creed there is no 
such thing as death. No one has exposed the dilemma of 
the pacifist more convincingly than Scudder: 

" Pacifists are prone to assert that the taking of human 
life is the supreme wrong because it destroys the supreme 
sanctity — personality. Men fight for ideas but they de- 
stroy persons in the process, and persons are more sacred 
than ideas. Now one may grant the major premise, the 
supreme sanctity of persons, yet reject the syllogism. For 
surely that syllogism ignores all larger thought of human 
development; it leaves immortality out of the running. The 
prevalence of this argument among some very religious 
people, Quakers and others, implies a troubling material- 
ism cropping out where one would least expect. It sug- 
gests that no one believes any longer in eternal life." 

At God's behest, to arrest in a career of crime a man — 
or a nation — that has run amuck, even if it involves the 
destruction of that man's body; and to bring his soul before 
the judgment-seat of God is not a matter of option, but of 
duty. To quote Professor Bosworth again: 

" We have sometimes come to regard the use of force to 
extinguish physical life with an artificial sentiment which 
does not justify itself in reason and morals. Perhaps this 
feeling is due to a traditional over-emphasis of the awful- 
ness of death. To the Christian, death is not a dreadful 
thing. To take life in hate is a dreadful deed. The dread- 
fulness consists not in taking life, but in hating. Jesus put 
the hate and contempt that expressed themselves in speech 
in the same class with the hate that kills. He did not see fit 
to draw a sharp line of discrimination between them." 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 19 

Calmness in the Presence of Death on a Gigantic 

Scale Not Necessarily an Evidence of 

Calloused Sensibilities 

The failure to apprehend the Christian attitude toward 
death accounts for another misinterpretation of fact often 
made by pacifists. It is argued that a few months of par- 
ticipation by a nation in any kind of war so accustoms 
people to death and so hardens their sensibilities that a great 
calamity like the Halifax explosion, for example, passes , 
unnoticed. This may be true of war instigated by aggres- 
sion and hatred. It is not so in a war of defense fought for 
great ideals. Men are no longer thrown into hysteria or 
depression, it is true, after a few contacts with death on 
a gigantic scale. But the peculiar thing about the Halifax 
disaster was that the pacifists who had repudiated war, lest 
participation should callous their souls, went about their 
business the day after the explosion no more depressed than 
militant Christians. The resulting calm in both parties 
was not the stagnation of callousness. It was the peace of 
God unconsciously apprehended perhaps by one, but no less 
real to both parties. It was the same calm which was in 
Jesus's heart when He said to the man who asked permis- 
sion before enlisting in His work to go and bury his father, 
"Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but go thou and 
publish abroad the kingdom of God." If death ends all, 
could any words have been more brutal? If there is no such 
thing as death, what reply could have been more sensible? 
Catholic, Hebrew, Protestant, Agnostic, Atheist — on the bat- 
tle line, when they come actually to face the acceptance of 
any other theory of death than the simple one of Jesus that 
there is no such thing — unconsciously often, no doubt, but 
instinctively, renounce the alternative. The calm of a 



20 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Christian nation, engaged in righteous war for unselfish 
Christian ideals and constantly face to face with death on 
a gigantic scale, is the calm of men for whom eternal life 
has already begun, because they have laid hold on the great- 
est proof of immortality: the results in their own lives of 
the practice by the will of the principle of Jesus that he 
that loseth his life — domestic, social, professional, or phy- 
sical — in sacrifice for the kingdom of heaven, shall find it. 
Such men do not merely hope that there is no such thing 
as death. They know. 

No Honest Pacifist Could Engage in War Work 

It is difficult to see how an Army or Navy Secretary 
who did not believe that righteous war is ever a Christian 
duty could, in justice to himself, long remain in war work. 
This might not be true of a body like the Friends, who 
grant that war may be right for other men, but who, because 
of decades of temperamental training of another sort, con- 
scientiously believe that it is impossible for them to engage 
in it without rousing the spirit of hatred within themselves, 
and who therefore ask to be assigned to non-combatant tasks 
in actual service where the danger to them is as great as, 
if not greater than, it would be to combatants, but where 
they are not forced actually to take life. But a man who 
honestly believes that righteous war is never Christian would 
be bound to propagate his convictions, no matter at what 
cost to himself. If he were sure that by fighting in a 
righteous war men damn their souls, then but one course 
would be open for him. He must do all in his power to dis- 
suade men from fighting and from damning their souls. 
This, from the standpoint of the Government, would be 
treason. 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 21 

Not only would such a man be false to his country. He 
vould be false to the central purpose for which he was 
engaged by the War Work Council. The object of the 
ifoung Men's Christian Association in the Army and Navy 
s to assist officers and men in learning how to live aright 
n a profession which involves killing. Any other definition 
>f our presence in the camp falls short. If it be argued 
hat our business is to show men how to die, it will at once 
>e answered that ninety-three per cent, of all our troops en- 
gaged in the present war, even if they pass through four 
rears of as bitter fighting as the British and French have 
experienced, will return at the close of the war alive. Even 
:or the seven per cent, who will not return, the best prepara- 
:ion for death will be found in right living. When the 
var is over and the League to Enforce Peace is established, 
:he international police force will still employ rifles and 
Dayonets and machine guns. They too will be expected to 
till, when occasion arises, in a Christian way. 

The Pathos of Uncertainty 

But far more compelling than any personal considerations 
involved are those which relate to the men to whom we 
ninister. Let no Army Secretary deceive himself with the 
loubtful logic that he can still do a valuable piece of social 
service in an army camp if he evades this fundamental issue ; 
>r that he can satisfy men's souls by counselling them to 
ieclare a moratorium on what he regards as Christian liv- 
ing until the war is finished, and then on the day after 
peace is declared, to begin living again according to his 
interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. As we live 
during this war we shall live after the war is over. Can 
1 man kill other men in righteous war for the defense of 
the great principles of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, 



22 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

and remain a Christian? This question will be put to any 
Secretary who is actually touching the lives of men and it 
will be put directly. And upon his answer will, in all prob- 
ability, depend the fate of many a soul. Enlistment in a 
righteous war is, in itself, a spiritual act. He who 
renounces all for an ideal, is, whether he knows it or not, 
doing just what he would do if he made a conscious resolve 
to put ambition and personal gain behind him and to live 
according to the Gospel of Christ. In the hour of decision 
to give one's self without reservation to the Nation, many 
men in the present war have come for the first time in their 
lives to know God as a reality. During the first month 
in camp, when the drill is mainly foot work, this spiritual 
exaltation continues. But inevitably there comes a day of 
testing — a day when men's souls are tried as by fire — the 
first day of bayonet drill, when mien charge over an embank- 
ment and into a trench to drive their bayonets into straw 
dummies made to imitate human bodies, with wooden frames 
inside to represent human bones. " No man," says Donald 
Hankey, " can go through this experience without being 
profoundly changed." Which will the change be, for bet- 
ter or for worse? Sick at heart and haunted by uncertainty, 
your lad and my lad stand on the night of that initial expe- 
rience at the parting of the ways of fatalism and faith. It 
was for just such an hour as this that you and I came 
to army camps. If we are silent, or uncertain, or faltering, 
your lad and my lad will argue thus : " Religion has no 
sure message for me. My country tells me I must kill. I 
must stay in the Army. There is no alternative. I'll throw 
over my religion." And in the path of this decision follow 
gradually, but inevitably, hatred and cruelty and lust and 
dishonor. 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 23 



The Triumph of Certainty 

But if in that hour of soul crisis the Secretary can turn 
md say with quiet certainty to your lad and my lad, " I 
vould not enter this work till I could see Jesus Himself 
ighting down a gun barrel and running a bayonet through 
n enemy's body. At first I shrank from associating Jesus 
vith the bayonet and essayed to place in His hands the 
word, the use of which He himself sanctioned. But soon 

reflected that the sword, which is today only an article 
»f adornment, was in His day the most terrible weapon 
if mutilation and destruction known and that the modern 
ayonet is no more dreadful an implement since it is sim- 
>ly the sword attached to a rifle. Then it was that I saw 
leaven opened and beheld One called Faithful and True. 
le was no longer mounted on a white horse, to be sure, 
lor arrayed in a white garment sprinkled with blood nor 
yas He armed with a sharp sword to smite. Rather I 
iscerned through clouds of gas and smoke One on foot 
rrayed in a garb of olive drab which was stained with 
lood and mire, and in His hands a bayonet sword attached 
a rifle. He asked no man to go where He would not go 
T to do what He would not do. He did not lead His men 
ip to the painful and bloody tasks which are the climax 
f every battle charge, to disappear just as the disagree- 
ble deed had to be done and thus shift the responsibility 
n others. He stood in the center of the line at the very 
ront in the thickest of the fight and these quiet words 
f assurance from His lips put courage into every heart and 
trength into every arm of those in the hosts which followed 
lim, *Lo I am with you always, even unto the end. 
Vhither I go, shall ye go also. When I put forth my own 

go before them. And they follow me.' I would not enter 



24 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

the war work till I was sure of this vision and had heard 
these words. But with them came a spiritual peace and 
power I had never before known." 

Then if the Secretary can patiently proceed to reveal how 
a Christian may fight, a most wonderful transformation in 
the boy's character almost inevitably takes place. It is the 
miracle of such soldiers as Chinese Gordon and Donald 
Hankey and Alfred Eugene Casalis. It is the spiritual 
triumph of those who have been shown, by faithful guides 
who went on before, not only how to fight the good fight, 
but also how to keep the faith. 

The fundamental question is not, " If Jesus were on earth 
today, where would He be engaged — as a worker in the 
Red Cross or in the Army Y M C A, or as an officer 
or as a private ? " He obviously could not be in all 
four places at once. The question is rather, " Is there 
any place where you and I are called to go in connection 
with the Army or Navy today where Jesus would not be 
willing to go?" For if Jesus would stop at the Y M C A 
buildings in this country and refuse to cross the sea, I, if I 
am a Christian, must obviously stop there with Him. But 
the experience of those of our Secretaries at Devens beyond 
draft age who were physically fit and not prevented by hon- 
est complications in the family, was that while they tarried 
behind in Y M C A buildings, Jesus went on before across 
the sea and if they had stayed at home, they would have 
been left behind without Him. And the experience of many 
Army Secretaries of draft age who were physically fit at 
Devens was this — that while they tarried behind in the 
Y M C A building Jesus went on before into the ranks, and 
had they not heeded the call to enlist, they would have 
remained behind without Him. 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 25 

One night in the summer of 1917 I boarded the New York 
leeper at Plattsburg, where I was serving as Army Secre- 
ary at the first R. O. T. C. encampment and whence I made 
1 weekly business trip to the metropolis. All the passengers 
lad retired except one young man, who was sitting silently 
md pensively in the smoking room. We engaged in con- 
versation and soon he confided to me his dilemma. He was 
he son of extremely conservative religious parents. He had 
jone to a great university a half dozen years before, had 
mmersed himself in advanced critical studies, and had lost 
lis faith. He had become an instructor in the university 
mt in spite of his many opportunities and successes, his 
ife continued restless and unhappy. When the war broke 
>ut, the conviction slowly broke upon him that the one way 
n which he could get back the simple and vital faith of the 
)ld days was by enlisting. But just as he reached this con- 
tusion there came a letter from his parents telling him that 
here was one thing and only one which they requested of 
lim, and that was that under no consideration should he 
mlist in the army. Tossed back and forth on the horns 
)f this dilemma, from duty to parents to duty to his own 
;oul, he had wandered about until finally he had taken the 
natter into his own hands without a word to the home folks, 
ind had enlisted. " The peace I longed for has come to my 
soul," he said, " but I simply don't dare to go home." " Old 
nan," I said, " that's the easiest picture puzzle to put 
:ogether I ever had presented to me. Just go home and 
:ell the folks you found Christ by enlisting. I'll warrant 
:he only reason they didn't want you to enlist was that they 
»vere afraid to have you face temptation and the possibility 
>f death without Him." He started up and eyed me 
squarely with a look of joy and relief. " You're right," he 
said, " what a fool I was not to think of that before." And 



26 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

for an hour, till after midnight, we sat and talked and then 
he left me to go, first home, and then to the artillery camp, 
with the light of God upon his face. 

I have wondered, sometimes, when I recall this incident, 
if we do not understate the matter when we affirm that 
Jesus would approve righteous war. Is He not, as a matter 
of fact, in all righteous wars carried on for the good of 
mankind, the chief recruiting officer and the head of the 
Bureau of Personnel? 

" Ye that have faith to look with fearless eyes 

Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife, 
And know that out of death and night shall rise 

The dawn of ampler life, 
Rejoice whatever anguish rend the heart, 

That God has given you a priceless dower, 
To live in these great times and have your part 

In Freedom's crowning hour. 
That ye may tell your sons who see the light 

High in the heavens — their heritage to take — 
' I saw the powers of Darkness put to flight, 

I saw the morning break/ " 1 

1 Verses found penciled on a sheet of paper in the pocket of a young 
Australian who died in the trenches at Gallipoli — evidently written by him 
just before he met his death. The lines were printed in an English paper, 
but it was unable to give the name of the writer. 



CHAPTER III 

THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL FOR MEN OF 
THE ARMY AND NAVY (Concluded) 

2. It must not be a reduced Christianity. 

The Half-Gospel of War-Time — Whence It Comes 
and What It Is 

In war-time — when patriotism, sacrifice, the breaking 
of home ties, newly-found centers of devotion such as one 
discovers in his company and in his officers loom large; 
when the centers of life change, when men's thinking is con- 
fused, where marching feet, drums, and martial music call 
up powerful, undefined, unexpressed, incoherent emotions; 
when one is so strongly moved by so many things that he is 
not quite sure just what is the cause of his attitude of mind 
and soul — religion is one of the first of interests to receive 
attention. 

Religion has to do primarily with ideals. Men will, it is 
true, work for those things which are seen, they will even 
die for material good; but the circumstances which have 
moved men the deepest and called forth the greatest sacrifice 
and effort have always been the things which are unseen — 
ideals, ideas, beliefs, the meaning of creeds, patriotism, love, 
hate, indignation, kindness, generosity, pride, prejudice, 
treachery, fortitude, revenge, loyalty. These qualities are 
unseen, yet they are real; they move men more deeply than 
any material good moves men. 

27 



28 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

When a war comes on we see everything in a new light. 
Patriotism is apt to become the religion of the period. 
Patriotism should always be religious, and true to religious 
tests, but we suggest that love for any one country is not 
necessarily the same as love for God and man. Every 
great, deep, and sobering emotion is not necessarily religious. 
Test the spirits to see which are true. The patriotic strain 
in men is the most open to appeal; therefore, when war 
comes, many religious leaders shift from preaching a com- 
plete evangel — embracing consistent daily living according 
to the principles of purity, honesty, unselfishness, and love — 
and preach a half-gospel that says in short: " You are mak- 
ing a great sacrifice for the human race; God will take care 
of you. You are courageous and brave. ' Greater love hath 
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends ! ' When you die in Flanders, or in the Vosges, 
or at Verdun, a kind and loving Father can do nothing else 
but receive you to Himself, no matter what your life may 
have been before the sacrifice." 

We suggest that in this sort of religious treatment of the 
soul's vital relationship to God, there is a vice. Is not a 
gospel incomplete which stands awed before physical cour- 
age, even though it be the greatest manifestation of courage 
this generation has known, a courage which constrains men 
to face machine guns, gas, and liquid fire? 

Just because a man faces battle like a hero, are we to 
throw over ideas of justice and fairness and say: " You are 
automatically forgiven the sins of lust you committed; the 
curses against God and man are wiped out. You are one 
who has given his all, in a cataclysmic moment, for world 
freedom; and before such courage, which resists trench 
mud, bad weather, and barrage fire, the ministers of Jesus 
stand silent in regard to the sins of the past. For men who 
have endured such perils and privations we have no message 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 29 

n regard to the old wrongs you have committed, not yet 
itoned for, however grievous they may have been." 

The Complete Gospel of Jesus — Why Still 
Indispensable 

Jesus spoke much of life. " I am the way, the truth, and 
the life/' "I am the bread of life." "Every one that 
irinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever 
irinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; 
but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well 
Df water springing up unto eternal life." " I am the resur- 
rection and the life." " I cam ; e that they may have life and 
may have it abundantly." Eternal life surely dates prior 
to death as well as after death. If a single act of heroism 
at the close of life can avail, then Jesus could have lived 
a dissolute life and still have been received unto the Father, 
because of His final act of suffering and heroism on the 
cross. No soldier in the present awful war surely, has 
made a greater sacrifice or suffered a more agonizing death, 
than Jesus of Nazareth did. It is significant that the enemy 
today has chosen crucifixion as the most cruel form of death 
he is able to inflict. On the cross, " One of the malefactors 
which were hanged railed on him, saying, Art not thou 
Christ? save thyself and us. But the other answered, and 
rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou 
art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for 
we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath 
done nothing amiss." And he, recognizing that death alone 
would not atone for his past life, said in penitent surrender 
unto Jesus, " Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy 
kingdom. And he said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." 

In this incident repentance by the sinner and acceptance 



30 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

by Christ are clearly set forth. In many instances in 
Christ's life repentance and confession are stated as condi- 
tions of soul salvation. " And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto 
the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the 
poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, 
I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, To-day is salva- 
tion come to this house." 

Can we, in the face of the New Testament teaching, preach 
but a half-gospel which gives absolution and salvation by 
reason of remarkable bravery per sc? Can we present such 
incompleteness as containing the whole of the Gospel of 
Christ? Can it be possible that we shall say, as some Chris- 
tian workers have said : " I have no message for men who 
have faced or are to face barrage fire and German machine 
guns." Can this inability to speak of the depth of the riches 
of love in Christ Jesus mean that Christianity has nothing 
to offer of equal or superior merit to the sacrifice and brav- 
ery of soldiers, or does it mean that we Christian workers 
have not the same courage as the soldiers to whom we 
attempt to minister, so that, having done like deeds, we still 
have a gospel that overtops all human courage and human 
suffering and endeavor in the measure of its depth and 
strength and scope ? Do we not have a gospel that has more 
merit and is inconceivably higher in the sacrifice it por- 
trays of Jesus and in the facts of His life, death, and resur- 
rection, than anything undergone by human beings in this 
war? If human sacrifice and human endeavor can outshine 
the endeavor and sacrifice and life and resurrection of Jesus, 
Christendom is indeed on the rocks. 

Men Can Live the Complete Gospel in War-Time 

Valhalla appeals to us all tremendously as a reward for 
gallant warriors, but of necessity we must look to life before 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 31 

death as well as the immediate circumstances concerning 
death. We must look beneath the camouflage which sur- 
rounds the issues of life and death in war time. What do 
we see? Do we not see that, although the merits of a 
brave, heroic, splendid soldier dying on the field of honor 
are infinitely greater than those of the miserable coward 
who escapes by some subterfuge the fiery trials of the bat- 
tlefield, yet the merits of the most nearly perfect warrior 
are far below the merits of Jesus of Nazareth? Look into 
the lives and letters, the poems and papers of the noble 
Christian men who have died in this war. We see them 
recognizing conscious faults in themselves. We behold 
them exalting Christ in the same way as they did before the 
fiery ordeal, only now their friendship with the Master is 
closer and more intimate, their estimate of His worth higher 
and more sure. 

Every one will grant that the spiritual and moral status 
of heroic and noble men is greatly above that of cowardly 
men or men who have not been put in situations which 
develop the exalted planes of courage and endurance upon 
which many brave soldiers do and must live. But there 
is a gulf, a wide gulf, between what the noblest and best 
and bravest soldier has achieved in life and in his death, 
and what Jesus Christ achieved. This gulf is so wide that 
to us it can be explained only by reasoning from the assump- 
tion that Jesus was divine and that men are human. This 
gulf represents the distance between what the best man can 
produce and what divinity incarnate in Jesus has produced. 

Men who seek to gloss over war-time vices reason some- 
what in this fashion : " These men are under a strain ; as a 
practical matter, we must let the 'minor moralities ' go by 
the board." There are no " minor moralities " in the face 
of the best Christian philosophy and ethics. There are no 
" moral holidays." Some will reason, " but you would make 



32 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

life unbearable by your Pharisaical insistence." Not at all. 
Men have been trained all their lives for the hours or days 
or weeks of crisis. Many men with splendid fortitude go 
through the worst the war has to offer and remain unharmed, 
having resisted habits of drink and other vices when drink 
and self-indulgence were available, and in moments when 
resistance was most difficult. Some men refuse to sag 
morally or spiritually. 

In these days of great affliction, it is well to recall that 
some of the faithful of every age have borne sufferings as 
great as, if not greater than, those we now bear and have 
kept the faith. 

" And what shall I more say ? for the time will fail me 
if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David 
and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued 
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, 
escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made 
strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of 
aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection: and 
others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that 
they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had 
trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds 
and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asun- 
der, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: 
they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, 
afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), 
wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the 
holes of the earth. And these all, having had witness 
borne to them through their faith, received not the prom- 
ise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, 
that apart from us they should not be made perfect. 

Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about 
with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, 
and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run 
with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto 
Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 33 

joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising 
shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne 
of God." 

Should not Christianity present a solid front, consistent, 
complete, not a special reduced war-time type, not narrow, 
but broad and deep? The four great principles which Jesus 
was constantly expressing in His life were purity, honesty, 
unselfishness, and love. To these Christendom ought to be 
true. We, as the workers who represent the Church or the 
churches in its or their work with the troops, should repre- 
sent these principles. We should never forget for a minute 
that we are representatives of something divine. 

Why Do Men Preach Only a Half-Gospel? 

It is when men forget they are representatives that they 
get confused and say that Christendom — or they, as the 
representatives of the active Christian forces — have no 
message for heroes who come back from a bayonet charge. 
Have the noise of battle, the rush of work, and the inter- 
ruptions that besiege war-time workers forced immediate 
human sacrifice so upon our notice that the great divine sac- 
rifice made by God in Christ has been forgotten or dimly 
remembered? Let us never forget that we are representa- 
tives of something greater than the short war-time life of 
any hero of the great war. We are representatives of One 
who lived a perfect life, before He was called to die as 
heroic a death as any man was ever called upon to die. 
Match His words and life with the best of the words and 
lives of any who have died or will die in the great war, and 
we shall not lack a message. The only problem is whether 
the ministers of Christ will be able to give it. 

Why do men pare down Christianity? Why do we shrink 
from proclaiming a complete way of life in days of stress 



34 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

and danger? Is it because we are unable physically, men- 
tally, or spiritually, to face the reproach such a claim will 
arouse upon us who propose it? Do we seek to substitute 
for the complete Evangel a gospel which requires only such 
efforts to defend and establish as men in a weakened posi- 
tion can defend and establish? We need not fail in any 
wise. If we enter as completely as it is possible for us into 
the heartache of the world, this will enable us and give us 
the right to preach a way of life which will heal the heart- 
ache and allow us to face any soldier, no matter how much 
he has suffered and agonized for the freedom of the world. 
For some, entering as fully as is possible into the fellowship 
of the soldiers' sufferings will mean enlistment in the Army 
or Navy; to some it will be sacrifice of future career to go 
into Y M C A work; to many it will mean some tertium 
quid. Each of us will know if he has in any wise failed, 
and to live alone with our conscience will be our worst 
punishment 

It will be argued that we are not dealing with compara- 
tive merits or trusting in human merit at all. This is true; 
yet the nature of our evangel must embrace the quality of 
completeness and we must clearly show that fair play to 
God and to men and women and children here on earth 
demands right living before the supreme crises of life, and 
that the plane of right living can be maintained in the most 
sordid and bloody circumstances. Character rises above 
circumstances. It is the master of circumstances and not the 
creature of them. If the spiritual and moral are above the 
mere physical, are not spiritual and moral things of the same 
value all the time, even though the physical is undergoing dis- 
comfort and pain and anguish? If so, ministers who have 
entered into the fellowship of the suffering of Jesus which 
transcends the suffering of any human beings, have the 
divine commission to preach the complete Evangel to needy 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 35 

nen in great trials — yes — to men who are facing trench 
nud, bad weather, barrage fire or machine guns. The right 
:o take such spiritual leadership depends on equality of sacri- 
ke. If we Secretaries make it, we may know what it is to 
lave the mantle of the power of the divine Christ upon us. 



The Half-Gospel of Jim Bludso 

A typical example of what we mean by incomplete or 
lalf-gospels is manifested in John Hay's poem, "Jim 
Bludso " : 

" Wall, no ! I can't tell whar he lives, 

Becase he don't live, you see; 
Leastways, he's got out of the habit 

Of livin' like you and me. 
Whar have you been for the last three year 

That you haven't heard folks tell 
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks 

The night of the 'Prairie Belle'? 

He weren't no saint, — them engineers 

Is all pretty much alike — 
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill 

And another one here, in Pike. 
A keerless man in his talk, was Jim, 

And an awkward hand in a row, 
But he never flunked, and he never lied, — 

I reckon he never knowed how. 

And this was all the religion he had, — 

To treat his engine well; 
Never be passed on the river; 

To mind the pilot's bell; 
And if ever the 'Prairie Belle' took fire — 

A thousand times he swore 
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last soul got ashore. 



36 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

All boats has their day on the Mississip, 

And her day come at last, — 
The ' Movastar ' was a better boat, 

But the ' Belle ■ she wouldn't be passed. 
And so she come tearin' along that night 

The oldest craft on the line — 
IWith a nigger squat on her safety-valve 

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. 

The fire bust out as she clared the bar, 

And burnt a hole in the night, 
And quick as a flash she turned, and made 

For that wilier-bank on the right. 
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out 

Over all the infernal roar, 
1 1'll hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last galoot's ashore/ 

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat 

Jim Bludso's voice was heard, 
And they all had trust in his cussedness, 

And knowed he would keep his word. 
And, sure's you're born, they all got off 

Afore the smokestacks fell — 
And Bludso's ghost went up alone 

In the smoke of the ' Prairie Belle.' 

He weren't no saint — but at jedgment 

I'd run my chance with Jim, 
'Longside of some pious gentlemen 

That wouldn't shook hands with him. 
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, 

And went for it thar and then; 
And Christ ain't a-goin' to be too hard 

On a man that died for men." 

Generosity prompts us to say one thing in the face of 
such a deed of heroism; consistent justice and thorough- 
going honesty prompt us to say something different. Can 
one individual act of heroism be substituted for a life of 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 37 

eeking to do the right? That this particular, individual act 
f heroism atoned for the tragic results on this particular 
ccasion of the dare-devil spirit in Jim Bludso which drove 
im to risk the lives of many others under his charge in a 
nld race with another river boat, no one will deny. But is 
lere no justice which demands also reconciliation with the 
rives in Natchez-under-the-Hill and at Pike ? " If thou art 
ffering thy gift at the altar," said Jesus, " and there 
ememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave 
iere thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be 
econciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy 
ift." Death-bed repentance is efficacious, no doubt. If we 
rould take a repentant man at his word, how much more 
rould God, whose love is vastly greater for men? It is a 
piritual law, and naturally so, that there shall always be 
lore joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than 
ver ninety and nine just persons. But that is just the rub. 
)o the Jim Bludsos confess and repent? Jim Bludso 
epented for risking the lives of the men on his boat in a 
are-devil race and confessed his repentance by his works, 
tut it is difficult to see just how this accomplished a recon- 
iliation with the wronged women in Natchez-under-the-Hill 
nd at Pike. Supposing every man in the Army and Navy 
hould accept as his gospel the half-gospel of Jim Bludso — 
:>r if Jim Bludso had the right to this gospel, so have you 
nd I. Supposing all soldiers and sailors should allow them- 
elves any and all moral excesses while in the service, on the 
trength of the possibility of being able to atone for deliber- 
te sin by a later heroic death. What shall we say of the 
inety-three per cent, of these men who will return when 
rar is over, without having had the opportunity to make the 
tonement? How are they to atone for the sins of the 
iterim ? Jesus never said, " For their sakes I sacrifice 
lyself." He used the word sanctify. "For their sakes I 



38 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

sanctify myself." And His definition of sanctification was 
given in a challenge to His enemies, " Which of you con- 
victeth me of sin? " and in an injunction to His friends, " Ye 
therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is per- 
fect/' Is not a life lived, or honestly attempted to be lived, 
according to the principles of purity, honesty, unselfishness, 
and love of more merit than a dissolute life ended by a mar- 
velous flash of endurance in physical pain and mental stress? 
Would justice grant to the Bludsos the same reward as to 
the Henry Ward Camps, the Donald Hankeys, the Alfred 
Eugene Casalises, who fought the good fight and in addi- 
tion kept the faith with family and with God ? 

The Complete Gospel of " Me 'nd Jim " 

Has not Eugene Field caught far better than Hay the real 
evangel for the Army in his poem, " Our Two Opinions " : 

" Us two wuz boys when we fell out — 

Nigh to the age uv my youngest now; 
Don't rec'lect what 't wuz about. 

Some small deeff'rence, I'll allow. 
Lived next neighbors twenty years 

A-hatin' each other, me 'nd Jim — 
He, havin' his opinyin uv me, 

'Nd / havin' my opinyin uv him. 

Grew up together 'nd wouldn't speak, 

Courted sisters, 'nd marr'd 'em, too; 
Tended same meetin'-house oncet a week, 

A-hatin' each other, through 'nd through ! 
But when Abe Linkern asked the W T est 

F'r soldiers, we answered — me 'nd Jim — 
He havin' his opinyin uv me, 

N'd J havin' my opinyin uv him. 

But down in Tennessee one night 
Ther wuz sound uv firin' fur away, 



THE NATURE OF THE EVANGEL 39 

'Nd the sergeant allowed ther'd be a fight 
With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex' day; 

'Nd as I wuz thinkin' uv Lizzie 'nd home 
Jim stood afore me, long 'nd slim — 

He havin' his opinyin uv me, 

N'd / havin' my opinyin uv him. 

Seemed like we knew there wuz goin' to be 

Serious trouble f'r me 'nd him; 
Us two shuck hands, did Jim 'nd me, 

But never a word from me or Jim! 
He went his way 'nd I went mine 

'Nd into the battle's roar went we — 
/ havin' my opinyin uv Jim 

'Nd he havin' his opinyin uv me. 

Jim never come back from the war again, 

But I hain't forgot that last, last night 
When, waitin' f'r orders, us two men 

Made up 'nd shuck hands, afore the fight. 
'Nd, after it all, it's soothin to know 

That here / be and yonder's Jim — 
He havin' his opinyin uv me 

'Nd / havin' my opinyin uv him." 

or the truth of the matter is that the only gospel whicK 
in secure the allegiance of the very men for whom we so 
ften pare down a substitute, is the complete Gospel. The 
alf-gospel repels. Only the full Gospel attracts. 
In one of the Y M C A buildings at Camp Devens, a devoted 
oluntary chaplain had labored week after week in the spirit 
f the Master. One day a man came to his room. He had 
een a commercial drummer before he was drafted and had 
ved a wild and irregular life. The chaplain urged him to 
ecome a Christian. He refused, saying that he did not 
'ish to take all the joy out of life, and after a short con- 
ersation went away. In a few days he came back again to 
le chaplain's room. He had been ordered abroad the com- 



40 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

ing week. The chaplain again pressed him to associate him- 
self definitely with the Church. The man again refused, and 
went away. But the morning of his departure he came 
for the third and last time to the chaplain's room. " Chap- 
lain," said he, " if I am baptized does it mean that I must 
cut absolutely with women and my old life ? " Here cer- 
tainly was a plain case of justification for a half-gospel. If 
the man about to sail for the moral danger zone overseas 
could be prevailed upon to associate himself with Christian 
men, even if he did not renounce his sins, might it not 
create an environment in which it would be easier for him 
to break gradually with his old life? But the chaplain 
had never preached anything but a complete gospel. I 
suspect that was why we all loved him so and why men 
came so often to his room for counsel. " My boy," said 
he, " if you are baptized it means that you will have to go 
the whole way." To his surprise, the soldier at once looked 
him squarely in the eye and grasped his hand. " Go ahead," 
he said, quietly but firmly. And that night, sealed with the 
baptism of the complete Gospel, he set out for France. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PROGRAM OF THE EVANGEL 

Henry Drummond, in his " The Program of Christianity," 
is perhaps shed a clearer light upon the opening portion 
I the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah than has any other mod- 
•n winner of souls. The present chapter is an effort to 
date the spirit of this passage as interpreted by Drum- 
ond to our program of personal evangelism in army and 
ivy camps. 

The expression of the life of God and the will of God 
i the life of man in the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah must 
ive made a deep impression on Jesus, for we find Him in 
ie early part of His ministry selecting this passage to read 
hen He went into the synagogue as His custom was on 
ie Sabbath day. 

Glad Tidings of Good Things for the Poor 

First, Isaiah said that the Spirit of the Lord was upon 
im. " Because he anointed me to preach the gospel to 
ie poor." To pampered, beggared lives, Jesus came to 
ring completeness. Into the emptiness of human hearts 
hich were selfish and mean he brought the riches of his 
>ve. His great function was incarnating the principles of 
urity, honesty, unselfishness, and love and bringing salva- 
on to men by getting them to believe in these principles 
id to act upon them. The consistent application of these 
)ur principles involved a belief in Jesus Himself as Saviour 

41 



42 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

and Lord. By His own vicarious atonement, bringing man 
and God together, by His death on the cross and all it sym- 
bolizes, and actually was, He completed a plan of salvation. 
He left it with twelve disciples and a few others, to tell 
about this plan, to propagate the principles of purity, hon- 
esty, unselfishness, and love, and to tell people — rich it may 
be in this world's goods but impoverished in soul — in Judea, 
and in Samaria, and in the uttermost parts of the earth, and 
in the army and navy stations where you and I are, about 
His life and teaching and death and resurrection. His 
great work has been done and is being done now; our work 
in the ministry of expert friendship is, as Paul says, "to 
fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." A 
fable runs that someone asked Christ in Heaven what His 
plan was for the salvation of the world. He replied that 
He had left that plan with men. "But suppose men fail 
you ? " was asked. The Master is recorded to have replied : 
" I have no other plan." To " fill up that which is behind I 
is our task. Such is the function of expert friendliness, to 
complete His work and to fulfil our ministry. A large part 
of the personal ministry of rescue and of reestablishing 
Christian faith and practice is the preaching of the Gospel, 
the Evangel, the glad tidings of good things to the poor. 
This is part of what is meant when we suggest that the 
nature of the evangel to whose tenets we wish to get men 
to subscribe should be Christian. 

Healing for the Broken-Hearted 

Secondly, Isaiah says, "He hath sent me to bind up the 
broken-hearted." This, too, is included in the content of the 
truly Christian Evangel. No one can stay in an army or 
navy camp many days before he is aware of anguish and de- 
spair in scores of human hearts. Men are there separated 



THE PROGRAM OF THE EVANGEL 43 

from home, who, having been called to the colors, are in tor- 
nent concerning wives about to become mothers, who are 
burdened with financial worry. No anxiety can equal the 
oad of grief that keeps a man away from his beloved wife in 
:he hour of her travail. Men come in with faces haggard — 
n their hands are telegrams saying that a mother has died. 
~an you then heal the broken-hearted? Can you not only 
:ell about the resurrection — that of the body, it is sown in 
;orruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in weak- 
less, it is raised in glory — can you not only tell but do you 
ibsolutely know that death is but an incident, but a moving 
nto " the other room " ? Are you so genuine in your knowl- 
edge and so gracious and wise in your dealings that you 
;an lay before men a fabric of religious ideas which is so 
fficacious, adequate, and complete that the broken-hearted 
vill behold and believe and be healed? This, too, is one of 
he elements which go to make up the content of the Evangel 
>r Gospel to whose tenets you seek to get other men to sub- 
cribe. 

Liberty for the Captives 

In the third place Isaiah said, " To proclaim liberty to 
he captives." To some this means freedom from captiv- 
ty to erroneous and unreasonable beliefs about religious 
natters. To some it means the dethroning of social usages 
Adiich have become the gods of barren or ignorant lives. To 
»ome men it may mean a release from the passion of 
gambling. To others it may mean a safe and rational 
mowledge about sex matters, the teaching of men in meth- 
ods which will bring victory over self-abuse, lust for women, 
disturbing images, rotten talk, and filthy stories. Some men 
are captives to obscenity. They wish to live better, but their 
noughts have run in low channels so long that they 
instinctively turn to obscene subjects of conversation. 



44 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

These men are prisoners. Can you free them? The foulest 
men in the barracks are men for whom Christ died. 

Can you take a man whose thinking and actions are dom- 
inated by some strong evil-minded person and free him from 
the mastery of the one who holds him as it were a slave? 
Can you free a man from selfish ambitions and the love of 
salutations in the market-places? Can you deliver the cap- 
tives of popularity? Can you cultivate self-respect and 
moral stamina in men who are the butt of every practical 
joke and the laughing-stock of the barracks, so that they may 
be free from such bondage and be fit to be comrades and 
brothers among other soldiers? These are some of the 
slaves found in the Army and in the Navy. To proclaim 
deliverance to the captives is part of what is meant in the 
term, a Christian Evangel. 

Recovery of Sight for the Blind 

" And recovering of sight to the blind," Jesus enumerated 
as a fourth element. To enable men to see the spiritual 
value of honesty — thorough, consistent, and pervading every 
detail of the day's work — is to teach men to see with new 
eyes. To bring back vision to men who have lost it, to help 
men who in the past saw an ideal to distinguish it once more, 
to lead men out of the mental chaos into which nearly every 
man must pass during war time, is to bring about the recov- 
ering of sight to the blind. Where self has blotted out the 
rights of others, where discipline has bred bitterness, where 
absence has dimmed love, where enforced deprivation has 
caused one to make light of the virtues of self-restraint — 
in all these and other situations, recovering of sight may be 
brought to the blind. May we not add this to the content 
of the term, a Christian Evangel or Gospel, to whose tenets 
we seek to get other men to subscribe? 



THE PROGRAM OF THE EVANGEL 45 



Liberty for the Bruised 

A fifth element Jesus adds as a constituent part of His 
program, " To set at liberty them that are bruised." Did 
you ever sit beside a man with syphilis or gonorrhea who 
knew he could not marry, a man who realized the awfulness 
of his condition, who fully comprehended the grimness of 
the retribution that had followed his disgraceful act? Do 
you know how the redemptive love of Christ can restore the 
lost purity? If not read the chapter entitled "The Lost 
i Purity Restored " in Horace Bushmen's book, " Sermons for 
the New Life." To set at liberty these broken men, men 
broken physically or broken in spirit, is also a part of expert 
friendship. 

In an army camp the necessary discipline, as well as the 
rough chaffing or coarser language, bruises the minds and 
spirits of many men of gentle mien. To such men the Army 
lor Navy Secretary has a most delicate and useful ministry. 
" To set at liberty them that are bruised " is comprehended 
in the Christian Evangel or Gospel, to whose tenets you seek 
to get other men to subscribe. 

The Accepted Time 

Jesus did not repeat all of the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, 
put before He laid down the book that Sabbath day in Nazar- 
eth, He read a seventh clause which added further meaning 
jto the Evangel He proclaimed, "To preach the acceptable 
iyear of the Lord." Elsewhere in the Scriptures we read the 
: sentence " Behold now is the accepted time, now is the day 
of salvation." In all our army and navy work, necessarily 
iso fleeting and fugitive in the quick and unexpected move- 
ment of troops and in the great variety of experiences and 



46 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

the suddenness of crisis in the lives of the men, we must be 
instant in season and out of season to preach the acceptable 
year of the Lord. 

One night a few men gathered about the fireplace in one 
of the Association buildings at Camp Devens. The Secre- 
tary read a few verses of Scripture and offered a prayer of 
thanks for the day's benefits, a plea for the loved ones at 
home and also for the comfort and peace of our own souls. 
When he finished, a great stalwart fellow who had at one 
time been a top-sergeant and orderly for the Major General 
in command, but had been degraded for drunkenness, raised 
his head and said, " That is the first prayer I have heard in 
eight years. It will do us all good." A morning or two 
before, after the Secretary had risen early and made a fire, 
so that any guards off duty might get warm, a man came 
in and warmed himself. The Secretary sat by the fire read- 
ing the Bible. " It is a great Book," he said and began 
to talk to the soldier about it. Before he finished he had 
him reading one of his own and his name was signed on a 
Pocket Testament League card, pledging himself to carry 
a Testament with him wherever he went and to read a chap- 
ter a day. " Now is the day of salvation." " Say not ye, 
There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest." It 
will not be long before every corner of your hut becomes an 
altar, for it will be consecrated by the memories of heart 
talks where you have sought to reveal Jesus to men and 
where perchance they have seen Him and accepted Him as 
the Leader and Friend and Guide of their lives. No situa- 
tion is too untoward to issue in spiritual conquest or ethical 
decision. There is a genius of redeeming the time, there is 
a method of instantaneously developing a situation or seiz- 
ing an opportunity to tell men about Jesus, to " preach the 
acceptable year of the Lord " which overtops weather, and 
times, and places, and causes circumstances to serve one, 






THE PROGRAM OF THE EVANGEL 47 



instead of destroying well-laid plans. Circumstances must 
and will yield before the divine enthusiasm and poise and 
consecration of God's children working in the military sta- 
tions or elsewhere. 

On a certain occasion the disciples urged Jesus, because 
the time was far spent and the place desert, to send the mul- 
titude away into the villages to buy food, but Jesus was mas- 
ter of circumstances and gave them the thing needed next — 
namely, food. " Bring them hither to me," He said, and 
He showed them expert friendship in what He did for them. 
Let us not send hungry, needy men to some other place, to 
be ministered to by some one else at some other time, but 
let us rather " preach the acceptable year of the Lord " now. 
This, too, may be taken as one of the many elements in the 
analysis of a Christian Evangel or Gospel, to whose tenets 
we seek to get men to subscribe in our personal ministry 
of rescue and spiritual reestablishment. This is a part of 
the work of experts in befriending men. 



CHAPTER V 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEN TO WHOM 
WE ARE TO MINISTER 

When one views his soldier or sailor parish he is struck 
with the fact that these young men in uniform are no more 
nor less than normal human beings thrown into an abnormal 
environment. The German conception that war is the nor- 
mal thing we believe to be wrong. Large armies are for 
times of crisis and crises do not last for long periods as a 
rule. 

What are some of the characteristics of the men to whom 
we are to minister? Among soldiers and sailors in the 
service you will discover very few degenerates physically or 
mentally. You will find these boys living at the age when 
the sex struggle is the hardest — fighting the same as every 
healthy man has to fight for manhood and for purity of life. 
Grouped together from all corners of the earth, under exter- 
nal conditions which compel an almost absolute lack of 
privacy, they yet hold more hidden secrets within than any 
body of men who have grown up together in their own little 
community. In most companies they are all strangers at the 
start. In many cases this is a stimulus to start a new life — 
to strive for a better life — in some cases it leads to just the 
opposite. 

The soldier and the sailor are generally idealists at heart. 
The slogan of the Marines, " First to Fight," was not born 
in a day. It evolved out of many years of service all over 

48 






CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEN 49 

the world by an unmatched arm of our forces. It is an 
indication of idealism, and means much to the men in that 
corps. Munger has said, " Young men are often told that 
conceit and wilfulness are their most marked characteristics. 
I do not believe it. Their highest capacity is that of inspir- 
ation. They do not readily take advice; they resent scold- 
ing . . . but they yield with the certainty of gravitation to 
personal influence." It would be difficult to find a more 
responsive body of men anywhere than soldiers and sailors. 

There are certain characteristics of the enlisted man's 
environment, however, which are abnormal. The old home 
life is gone, the direct influence of mother, sister, wife, 
sweetheart, children is largely done away or very much 
dimmed. One will find that the soldier's interests have nar- 
rowed. He is not now directly concerned whether Thomas 
Jackson is made senator or whether the town votes $3.50 
to buy a handle for the village pump. A thousand and one 
matters that used to cause him righteous indignation he 
passes over in perfect poise. His interests are gradually 
merged into the one great interest before Christendom — the 
winning of the war. 

The social relations of the soldier or sailor, so far as 
any self-selected circle is concerned, must be largely fore- 
gone. He is thrown with a group: with them he is to live, 
to eat, to sleep, to fight, to win, or to be defeated. From 
his group and generally from this only he chooses his 
" bunkie " and his other companions. 

There is also an absence of what one might term cul- 
tural training in the service, that one would have the oppor- 
tunity of getting in civilian life. In a great military organi- 
zation preparing for the hour of battle such training has, of 
course, no place. The ordinary means of religious expres- 
sion also, through the church where perhaps for a genera- 
tion or more the family occupied the same pew, through the 



50 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

young people's meeting, and through the Sunday school, are 
for the most part gone, except as they are again created by 
the chaplains of the forces and by the Christian agencies 
at work. 

Again the environment is abnormal, in that men are 
definitely limited in the matter of time. Punctuality is pre- 
eminently a military virtue. A man can no longer go when 
and where and how he chooses. He must go at regular inter- 
vals and be back at a given time, and travel by a stated way. 
His pass permits him to go to certain places only. He is, 
therefore, far more accessible than the civilian. 

Then, too, these men in the service are surprisingly near 
the same age. In that they are much like a university stu- 
dent body. They differ, however, in their officer-teachers, 
for the gravity of the situation has called forth many young 
men as officers and we have young men leading and teach- 
ing men not only of their own age but in many instances 
those older than themselves. 

It may be noted that in no other calling do men have 
such a unity of purpose as in the service. Before every 
officer and enlisted man is this one great task, preparation 
for battle, the winning of the war. Just because many men 
are gripped by this purpose and because they know that 
battle means for many the laying away of the mortal body, 
they are open to a direct spiritual appeal from those really 
in touch with spiritual sources. 

In no other calling, also, are men more genuinely sympa- 
thetic and thoughtful of others. Witness the following para- 
graph from a soldier's letter: 

" Recently I chanced to pick up a Red Cross magazine 
and ran on to a couple of verses that startled me, inas- 
much as I had experienced the exact converse of the idea 
therein expressed, while acting as Corporal of the Guard 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEN 5* 

last winter. It was bitter cold, about 30 below, and I had 
just changed reliefs. The man who had been put on turned 
to me and said, ' It must be cold on board ship tonight.' 
Here are the verses, called ' Sympathy/ written by a stoker 
on one of His Majesty's ships: 

1 The middle watch. A wicked night 
With storm and driving sleet: 
A grim destroyer fights her way 
Through breaking seas and blinding spray 
Alert and ready for " the day " 
That's promised to our Fleet. 

A gun's crew standing by their gun 
The spray completely drenches; 
They stick it out — they do at sea, 
And one man to his chum, says he : 
" What a cold bitter night't must be 
For fellows in the trenches." ' " 

What are the results of these unique conditions ? One will 
note in a good company and regiment a group conscious- 
ness, a spirit which is something like a class spirit at col- 
lege. Also one will see young men heretofore debonair 
and gay, who suddenly, at the imposition of some respon- 
sibility, put on gravity and dignity with their chevrons. Of 
course one will find the jokesmiths who refuse to look at 
anything seriously, but even these are many times more 
serious than anyone imagines. Kipling spoke from no 
immature experience when he said, " The backbone of the 
Army is the non-commissioned man." There are many 
latent qualities in the human heart that only danger and 
pain and responsibility can draw forth. 

Winifred M. Letts, writing from an extended experience, 
in the lines " To a Soldier in a Hospital " has admirably 
stated this unwonted maturity of mind and soul. I quote but 
two stanzas: 



52 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

" Yes, you wore courage as you wore your youth 

With carelessness and joy. 
But in what Spartan school of discipline 

Did you get patience, boy? 
How did you learn to bear this long drawn pain 

And not complain? . . . 

Greybeard philosophy has sought in books 

And argument this truth, 
That man is greater than his pain, but you 

Have learnt it in your youth. 
You know the wisdom taught by Calvary 

At twenty-three." 

Another result of the army life is the loss of one's indi- 
viduality to a large degree. A man must lose his life to find 
it in the life of the Army. One who refuses to become a cog 
in the machine causes the whole mechanism to bump and jar 
in proportion to the importance of his position, Team 
work is paramount. Individualism must be laid away. 

Because of the foregoing effects of the army and navy 
life upon the men, it will be noticed that many men quite 
naturally lose their initiative and are content to remain as 
privates or seamen. I was connected with a military 
organization one summer in which I knew several scores 
of men who were content to be privates. However, the 
next summer these same men, when offered the opportunity 
of competing for officerships, entered into the project with 
enthusiasm and the great majority are now officers, many 
holding captaincies. Many times the loss of initiative is 
what Paul terms learning " in whatsoever state I am, therein 
to be content," but in other cases it is a growing leanness 
of soul, a sort of mental and spiritual anemia. This will 
be noted oftenest in privates, for it is quite remarkable how 
even the smallest officership will cause a man to take interest 
in his work. Advancement and enthusiasm for the work 
often go together. 






CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEN S3 

Men in the service in a great measure forego ambitions 
to secure the wealth and positions of civilian life. But it 
is also to be remembered that there is a wealth of military 
life measured not in dollars and cents but in the bars on a 
man's shoulders and in the authority with which he is vested. 

What is the task of the Christian minister in such a situa- 
tion? It certainly is not to reproduce in an army camp 
ivilian normal life. Rather, it is to make adequate the 
environment in which the soldier or sailor must live abnor- 
mally for a season, in order that his mind, heart, and soul 
may be fed and may develop. 

One of the first things to be observed about Christian 
work in the Army and in the Navy is the necessarily frag- 
mentary and fugitive nature of the effort. There are no 
ong-continued contacts. The men are " ships that pass in 
:he night." There is rarely any normal church life. Hardly 
iver is there any regular Christian giving or attempt at it. 
Communion services are not always available to the soldier 
)r sailor. While in civilian life many lay workers are used 
Dn committees and in other cooperative ways, there has not 
)een in the past much lay religious initiative among enlisted 
nen or attempts at the cultivation of it. This is largely due 
o the pressure under which the men work and the short- 
less of the time they spend at any one post. 

Group consciousness has always lent itself to high ideal- 
sm when men have been able to furnish the ideals. The 
Dattle cries of the past, such as " For God and St. George," 
ire but the crystallization of the ideals for which the men- 
it-arms of other days fought. These men who are seeking 
nspired leadership must find it. Leadership need not 
lecessarily take the form of initiative and carrying on a 
movement oneself. One of the finest sorts of spiritual 
guidance is accomplished when one is able to give an idea 
:o another or others and to see him or them work it out 



54 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

in its completeness, and adopt it as his or their own. One 
of the tasks of the Christian ministry today is to furnish 
ideas and ideals upon which the group consciousness of 
men in the service can feed and find guidance. 

The minister to our forces must show that the loss of 
individuality in itself is not an evil thing. Discipline is no 
more nor less than a mental attitude, which shows that a 
man understands the relationships of team work when he 
quickly and cheerfully obeys an order. Part of the minis- 
ter's work is to show men in the service that perfect 
obedience to law really brings the largest liberty. 

Finally, the attitude of seriousness and unwonted matur- 
ity which one may see in the men of all arms of our service 
is rather to be encouraged than otherwise. Men, real men, 
are born and reared for the hour of crisis. The greatest 
joy that can come to any man is the sober realization that 
he is doing a man's job in the right way. 

These mentioned are but a few of the characteristics of 
the lives of our men who stand watch on sea and land. You 
who go to serve must also go to study. 

" Ambassador of Christ you go 
Up to the very gates of Hell, 
Through fog of powder, storm of shell, 
To speak your Master's message : ' Lo, 
The Prince of Peace is with you still, 
His peace be with you, His good-will/ 

Then God go with you, priest of God, 
For all is well and shall be well ; 
What though you tread the roads of Hell, 
Your Captain these same ways has trod. 
Above the anguish and the loss, 
Still floats the ensign of His Cross." 

Winifred M. Letts, d 



CHAPTER VI 
WHAT IS A POINT OF CONTACT? 

This term has a different meaning to different persons 
md a different meaning to the same persons in varying situa- 
tions. There is no inherent necessity for, nor virtue in re- 
iucing our several conceptions of the meaning of " a point 
>f contact " to uniformity. The danger is that points of con- 
act will be considered as only those rare situations in which 
one is himself forced to speak of the central message of the 
Christian religion, In a given situation some men may find 
nany points of contact, while to others on the staff the place 
nay be desert and the time far spent. 

Points of contact are largely matters to be dealt with in 
[he consideration of one's own willed, conscious determina- 
ion to win men to a rational and vital faith in Jesus and to 
;et them to live and express their religion according to the 
>rinciples He taught and lived. Personality will be devel- 
)ped, contacts will be made or discovered, spiritual life will 
re deepened when we get down deep in our lives the will to 
klti men, the will to befriend men, the will to rescue men, the 
Ivill to reestablish men in their own religious life with God. 
'n any ultimate statement we must turn to the will for the 
Solution of most of our troubles. He that willeth to do 
ijod's will shall know. It all depends on how much one 
\vants to do it. Once I could not paint signs nor make 
J helves or benches, but when I really wanted to do these 
things enough to put effort into my work, I found I could 
^o both fairly creditably. 

55 



56 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

The testimony of scores of deeply spiritual and success- 
ful personal evangelists has been that at first it was seem- 
ingly impossible to do hand-to-hand Christian work, but 
that later it became possible. The wish always becomes a 
reality when men will that it shall. " They therefore can 
who will what ought to be." " If any man willeth to do his 
will he shall know of the teaching whether it is of God, or 
whether I speak from myself." Likewise if any man willeth 
to touch the lives of men in a personal, intimate way, to 
bring to bear on their lives the message of the Evangel, and 
to seek to get them to decide to live out its principles, he 
shall find or create such opportunities and contacts in the 
most untoward situations. The plenitude or scarcity of 
points of contact is in most cases a matter of the genuine- 
ness and intensity of desire, the knowledge one has of the 
saving power of God and of His plan of salvation as revealed 
bit by bit in the books of the Bible, the love one has for the 
men with whom he works and the consistent cleanness and 
honesty of one's own life. 

Points of contact do not depend on superficial " things 
in common " — cigarettes and social glasses, likenesses in 
education, similarity of environment, equality of social 
rating, or sameness in speech or color. Points of contact 
are not technical situations in which alone one is supposed 
to grapple with men for the salvation of their souls. We 
turn from a term which has become somewhat crystallized, 
to find that those who are getting results for the Kingdom 
are crowded with potentialities for soul diagnosis, with pos- 
sibilities for soul healing, and with opportunities for laying 
before men, in a sane and rational way, the Magna Charta of 
the Kingdom of God as set forth by Jesus in the Sermon om 
the Mount. We find they never lack occasions for present^ 
ing Jesus as a living, personal, ever-present friend. 

Men will answer to this that if points of contact are so 



WHAT IS A POINT OF CONTACT? 57 

plentiful, and if almost any situation can be turned into an 
Dccasion for a personal religious interview, then in a camp 
3f thousands of approachable men the burden of the work 
ind the urgency of the need will be more than any earnest 
worker could bear up under. Not at all ! We suggest that 
>ne who makes a close and discerning scrutiny of the Scrip- 
:ures will find in them the clear and convincing evidence that 
3od has a plan for every life, and if for every life, then for 
rvery day. To many men God evidently has no wish that 
ve should speak. However, the danger is that we shall not 
)e willing, or if willing, not prepared, to speak to the many 
for whom He has a plan that we should speak. Seldom 
ndeed do you meet an earnest winner of men who will affirm 
hat he has spoken to all those concerning whom he has had 
L burden laid on his mind. If we introduce the will of God 
olution for life and put our lives under the guidance and 
rlirection of God, we alleviate the strain and nervousness, 
ivhile by constant preparation — the practice of the presence 
f Jesus — and by continuing instant in prayer, we may 
ach be ready to do His will and redeem the time that would 
''therwise pass devoid of all spiritual fruitage. 



CHAPTER VII 

HOW TO BEGIN AND OF WHAT TO BEWARE 

How to Begin 

How, then, may we begin such a ministry? A close 
scrutiny of the personal ministry of Jesus and of our best 
personal evangelists gives us some practical suggestions 
as to how this work is to be done. 

1. As far as possible conduct the interview yourself with 
the man alone, selecting the line of argument. Napoleon 
chose his own battlefields. 

2. Get a point of contact. 

3. See what the man's need is — Jesus came not to call 
the righteous but sinners to repentance. Diagnose this need 
yourself — a man may deny to a physician that he is sick; 
the latter must determine the facts for himself. 

4. Avoid argument. Do not discuss comparative or rela- 
tive merits of different religious systems and the value of 
your own — this often ends in heated argument. 

5. Put to your man these four tests as you talk with him. 
Watch to see if he rings true on each one. 

a. Purity. And if thy right eye causeth thee to stum- 

ble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. — Matt. 
5:29. 

b. Honesty. If therefore ye have not been faithful in 

the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your 
trust the true riches? — Luke 16: II. 
58 



HOW TO BEGIN 59 

c. Unselfishness. So therefore whosoever he be of you 

that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot 
be my disciple. — Luke 14 : 33. 

d. Love. This is my commandment, that ye love one 

another, even as I have loved you. — John 15: 12. 

6. Show the way out of the special difficulty, no matter 
what it costs the man. 

7. Bring your man to a point of decision and action, if 
possible. 

8. Start him on the new life. 

a. Teach him real Bible study, read with him, and get 

him to take up the morning watch. 

b. Help him to know and utilize the power of prayer, 

especially intercessory prayer for others. 

c. Show him how to overcome temptation. If you do 

not know how yourself, today is the time to learn. 

d. Start him on some daily service for others, where 

he will not be mentioned and from which no glory 
may come to him. N 

Things of Which to Beware 

In the work of expert friendship we have all recognized 
situations and attitudes and occurrences the avoidance of 
which in the future might well be made a matter of grave 
concern. 

One of these matters which mars the best work is the 
proposition of merely " going through the motions." By 
this we mean merely staging religious meetings, a crowd for 
which can be gotten by a few clever tricks in advertising. 
If we have religious meetings and Bible classes devoid 
of the warmth, vigor, and beneficent influences of the Chris- 
Itian religion, are we not just going through the motions, the 
mechanics, the technique of religious work? There is 



60 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

reality in Christian living and in Christian teaching. Why 
can we not all find it? " If any man willeth to do his will, 
he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or 
whether I speak from myself." 

Neglect to follow up work after large meetings is exceed- 
ingly dangerous. The harvest must never be ungarnered. 
Men after religious experiences are generally leadable and 
teachable ; here, then, is an opportunity for befriending men 
in a time when friendship knits hearts quickly together. 

The idea that we cannot do good work when we are tired 
is much abused. Any effective man must in the nature of 
things do much of his best work when he is tired. Expert 
friendship in winning men to become sincere followers of 
Jesus demands inevitable preparedness to respond to any 
S. O. S. signals at any time from any one. Faith in the ex- 
istence of unseen sources of power, and the ability to tap 
such unseen sources, are necessary to effective Christian 
friendship. 

One of the most insidious leakages of spiritual reserve 
comes through what we may term the habit of disassociat- 
ing oneself from the staff or organization to which one 
belongs when it comes under fire. Much good work is often 
done by letting the blow fall on us. By remedy instead of 
justification and recrimination in regard to an error made by 
ourselves or our associates we can often not only placate 
a nervous, irritable man, but also present to him a revelation 
of how a disciple of Jesus acts when points of consistency, 
honesty, and honor in small details are at stake. The min- 
istry to suspicious people is a large one. It allays gossip and 
is antiseptic to the poisons of discontent and fault-finding. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EXPERT FRIENDSHIP THE KEY TO METHOD 
IN PERSONAL EVANGELISM 

As we approach the topic of the secret of method in 
personal evangelism we stand on holy ground. We attempt 
to peer back into the past, to scrutinize the lives of the 
saints who were servants of God and friends to men. We 
seek to discover the sources of their power, the secret of 
their success, the motive of their endeavors. 

There have been many attempts to characterize the min- 
istry of Jesus. But there is none which approaches in its 
simplicity and comprehensiveness the single sentence from 
the pen of a modern seer : " Jesus of Nazareth was a pri- 
vate person in search of a friend." Herein is the essence 
of all real personal evangelism. 

No less simple and comprehensive is John's summary of 
the method by which our Lord accomplished His ministry 
of expert friendship. " The law," he says, " was given by 
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 

The motive for personal evangelism must be one of love. 
By this is meant a desire, a yearning, a compelling, con- 
straining emotion, a passion which executes with grace and 
kindness the choices of the will, and which causes one to 
direct the resources of spirit, mind, body, and material treas- 
ure for the benefit, guidance, and material and spiritual well- 
being of others, and all this without thought of reward to 
self. 

61 



62 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

The motive of such service can never be to glorify any 
organization, however worthy ; or to be known as an effective 
Christian worker; or to lose one's life in service, just in 
order that one may find it again in a more profitable sphere. 
Such work should never be used as a means of propagating 
one's own bizarre or naive ideas of religion. The motive 
must never be for purposes of winning men to one's own 
personality, no matter how attractive. The men for whom 
we work must be so acquainted with Jesus that they will 
become His friends. 

The Evangel which has done and will continue to do 
the greatest good in the lives of men is typified by love and 
grace, by kindness and by poise, rather than by sternness 
and rigidity, by the martinet spirit, or by " pep." Straight- 
forward directness and spiritual discipline have their place, 
but often brusqueness in religious matters and harshness in 
one's touches with men reveal a spiritual leanness devoid of 
that warmth and generosity which will cause others to 
respond and expand in their spiritual lives. Many are able 
to diagnose soul diseases, but are unable to heal them. 

" Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus." 
"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking; but right- 
eousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The an- 
titheses of righteousness, peace, and joy are sinfulness, nerv- 
ousness, and unhappiness. If the gospel reposing in us lacks 
sufficient efficacy to rid us of indispositions of soul, can we 
rid others? We can only give what we ourselves possess. 
Henry Drummond, in his paper on love, "The Greatest 
Thing in the World," shows the havoc wrought by ill-tem- 
per. The following quotation will convince one that all 
such elements must never be included in the Evangel to 
whose tenets we seek to get other men to subscribe. 



THE KEY TO METHOD 63 

" The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vice of the 
virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble 
character. You know men who are all but perfect, and 
women who would be entirely perfect but for an easily ruf- 
fled, quick-tempered, or ' touchy ' disposition. This com- 
patibility of ill-temper with high moral character is one of 
the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is, 
there are two classes of sins — sins of the body and sins 
of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a 
type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now 
society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the 
worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodi- 
gal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one 
another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words: 
but faults in the higher nature may be less venial than 
those in the lower, and to the eye of Him, who is Love, a 
sin against love may seem a hundred times more base. No 
form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunk- 
enness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than ill- 
temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communi- 
ties, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devas- 
tating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking 
the bloom off childhood — in short, for sheer gratuitous 
misery-producing power, this influence stands alone. Look 
at the Elder Brother, moral, hard working, patient, dutiful 
— let him get all credit for his virtues — look at this man, 
this baby, sulking outside his own father's door. ' He was 
angry ' we read, ' and would not go in.' Look at the effect 
upon the father, upon the servants, upon the happiness of the 
guests. Judge of the effect upon the Prodigal — and how 
many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the 
unlovely character of those w T ho profess to be inside ! 
Analyze as a study in temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it 
gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made 
of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-right- 
eousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness — these are the 
ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying pro- 
portions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill-temper. 
Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live 



64 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

in, and for others to live with, than sins of the body. Did 
Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, 
1 1 say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into 
the kingdom of heaven before you ' ? There is really no 
place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with 
such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the 
people in it. Except therefore, such a man be born again, 
he cannot — he simply cannot — enter the kingdom of 
heaven. For it is perfectly certain — and you will not mis- 
understand me — that to enter heaven a man must take 
heaven with him. 

" Now there is nothing that a Christian has to take more 
trouble to eradicate forever from his being than ill-temper. 
It requires the struggle of years — perhaps of a lifetime: 
but it has to be done. It must be done" 

Does not the above sufficiently illustrate what we mean 
when we suggest that the Evangel we wish to propagate 
should be typified primarily by grace and love incarnated 
in human beings, and that pugnacity, quarrelsomeness, ill- 
temper, brusqueness, and quickness to say sharp and cutting 
things, should be clearly recognized as unchristian in the 
workers as well as in the ones with whom they work ? " The 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control: against such 
there is no law." 

In the consideration of the Evangel or Gospel to which 
we seek to get other men to subscribe, we suggest that it 
should call unmistakably for an expression of itself in deeds 
of courtesy, generosity, and kindness, initiated by thoughts 
of sincere appreciation of the needs and comforts of others 
and not initiated by considerations of self-advantage. This 
is what John meant by grace. 

And as we study the lives of the saints who followed Jesus, 
we find first of all that they were true gentlemen. If they 
were working on your staff and on mine they would work 



THE KEY TO METHOD 65 

in harmony. In order that personal evangelism through 
friendliness may come not only to flower but to fruitage, 
there must be that freedom from persecution, annoyance, and 
argument over settled details which will leave the minds of 
all clear for spiritual reflection. Men who sally forth on 
soul quests need the peace of God which passes understand- 
ing in their own lives, for the minds and hearts of the men 
of our generation are sorely disturbed. There is all the more 
reason for the cultivation of genuine courtesy and staff har- 
mony. It is well for us often to measure our lives by the 
standard of " A Christian Gentleman." 

" He is above a mean thing. He cannot stoop to a fraud. 
He invades no secret in the keeping of another. He betrays 
no secret confided to his keeping. He never struts in bor- 
rowed plumage. He never takes selfish advantage of mis- 
takes. He uses no ignoble weapons in controversy. He 
never stabs in the dark. He is not one thing to a man's 
face and another behind his back. If, by accident, he comes 
in possession of his neighbor's counsels, he passes upon 
them an act of instant oblivion. He bears sealed packages 
without tampering with the wax. Papers not meant for his 
eye are sacred to him. He invades no privacy of others, 
however the sentry sleeps. Bolts and bars, locks and keys, 
hedges and pickets, bands and securities, notices to tres- 
passers, are none of them for him. He may be trusted 
alone, out of sight, near the thinnest partition — anywhere. 
He buys no offices, he sells none, he intrigues for none. He 
would rather fail of his rights than win them through dis- 
honor. He will eat honest bread. He tramples on no sen- 
sitive feeling. He insults no man. If he have rebuke for 
another, he is straightforward, open, manly; he cannot 
descend to scurrility. In short, whatever he judges honor- 
able he practices toward every man." 

A conscious, willed effort to incarnate the grace of Jesus 
would be a source of power to all of us who seek to be 
expert friends — a grace which is an attitude of friendli- 



66 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

ness, genuinely kind and respectful of all, never patronizing 
nor flippant to even the most simple. 

A professor from one of America's proudest universi- 
ties serving in one of our huts was cleaning up the floor. 
A very wealthy college man in uniform saw him and was 
struck by the humble service. They engaged in conversa- 
tion which issued in religious conviction on the part of the 
student soldier. The grace of Christ dwelt in the pro- 
fessor richly; he cleaned the floor differently from the way 
the student had ever seen any one else do it. He was forced 
to say, as was said so long ago about Jesus, " We never saw 
it on this fashion." Christ said that he that is greatest of all 
shall be servant' of all. Would not an incarnation of this 
same grace of Jesus in you and in all of us be the secret of 
much success in the personal ministry of rescue and of rees- 
tablishment in the Christian faith? 

May we turn from the consideration of grace as one of the 
secrets of success in expert friendliness and examine the 
other quality mentioned by John as characteristic of Jesus, 
which has been the key to many a difficult situation and 
spiritual awakening — namely, the simple quality of truth- 
fulness. " For the law was given by Moses, but grace and 
truth came by Jesus Christ." 

When staff relationships become strained, try the tonic 
of absolute frankness combined with grace. A prominent 
religious worker, when he had just finished college, was 
called upon to go North to speak to a crowd of men in a 
small, isolated, rural community. The occasion was the 
death of the only son of the leading and most beloved citizen 
of the town. With this son a long line of noble New Eng- 
land people died out. Of course the hall would be crowded. 
The young college man sought for power and for wisdom 
in the Bible. This verse stood out sharply, " If thou art 
offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that 



THE KEY TO METHOD 67 

thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift 
before the altar, and go thy way: first be reconciled to thy 
brother, and then come and offer thy gift." He imme- 
diately wrote to a college mate who he knew harbored most 
bitter feelings against him because of secret society misun- 
derstandings in college and explained the whole matter hon- 
estly and frankly. A beautiful letter came as a response. 
The bitterness was all gone, the truthfulness and honesty of 
the first letter issued in the union of the two old friends. 

Having thus been reconciled to the brother who had aught 
against him, he went up and spoke from his heart to the 
people crowded into the town hall. When the message was 
ended three prominent men in the town had made that 
supreme decision whereby men who were formerly " inferior, 
consciously wrong, divided, and unhappy " become " supe- 
rior, consciously right, united, and happy." This meeting 
was over fifteen years ago. One of these men lived a con- 
sistent, saintly life and died in the faith. The other two are 
now among the town's leading citizens, church-going, dealing 
honestly, and respected by everyone for their consistent 
Christian character. These men have continued " saved " ; 
they were united in friendship to Christ and not to the 
speaker's diction, argument, or personality. This we sug- 
gest is a perfect example of how power can come to weak 
men who by truthfulness make things right. 

May we add other examples of how truthfulness gives 
power to one's work? A little group of men in Yale Uni- 
versity had set out to improve their own spiritual condition 
and to persuade men to a rational and vital faith in God 
as Father, and Jesus Christ as Saviour, Guide, and Friend. 
One night after the group had dispersed one of the men 
lingered to talk with the leader. The problem of tempta- 
tion was discussed. The leader told in frank open fashion 
the truth about his own desperate fight for purity. The 



68 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

unvarnished truth was revealed. When the story was ended 
the young college man leaned over and said : " That thing 
is getting me ; tell me how to win. No one has ever revealed 
to me how terribly he was tempted. I thought I, alone, 
was in this situation." The simple truthful story of one 
man had opened another's life so that he might find a way 
to win. Today he is living a triumphant life and is one 
of the youngest captains in the National Army. 

Again, in a little group of men at Plattsburg during the 
first R. O. T. C. in 1917, a man ventured to tell the truth 
about his own fight for character. The shams were thrust 
away. When the group broke up a young man who had 
played end on one of the championship foot-ball teams of 
the East waited to talk with the one who had spoken 
frankly about his struggle. Again the truth had accom- 
plished what years of listening to lectures and mere formal 
companionship with Christians had failed to do. It brought 
about a confession on the part of the young man who waited, 
and a decision on his part to win to cleanness of life. Truth 
is one of the greatest instruments of spiritual power, both 
in revealing one's own battles and in disclosing to the man 
with whom one is working the nature of his soul-illness if 
such one finds. Telling the truth in love is a great eradica- 
tor of small maneuvers, a splendid clarifier of issues, a means 
of precipitating what might issue in a mere sparring bout 
of words into a grapple over the issues of life and death. 

One night I sat in an army hut until the early morning 
listening to a man pour out his life story and his struggles 
for mastery over vice and selfishness. He started with con- 
siderable clouding of issues. I prayed God to give me grace 
enough to tell him truthfully what I thought about him and 
his situation. The truth was efficacious. He admitted all 
I had said. He then let open the gates into his soul and 
hour after hour he paced the floor and talked. To have 



THE KEY TO METHOD 69 

placated him and pacified him with fake notions that he was 
doing " pretty well " would have been unchristian. The 
truth worked into his soul's vitals like a surgeon's scalpel, 
cutting out with pain and agony the rotten, the decayed, 
the impure, the parasitical growths. Gladly would I have 
fled this scene of mental agony, but it was the hour I had 
prayed to see for months. " For the law was given by Moses, 
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." May we all 
have grace to be good listeners, and power enough to speak 
the truth in love. This, too, we suggest as one of the secrets 
of expert friendship. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE GOAL OF EXPERT FRIENDSHIP 

In the preceding chapters we have attempted to define 
with some exactness the term personal evangelism, to show 
the nature and content of an Evangel adapted to men of 
the Army and Navy, and to outline some outstanding char- 
acteristics of the environment of these men as contrasted 
with that of men in normal civilian life. Suggestions have 
been made as to where and how one should begin the work 
of personal evangelism, what should be avoided, and how 
large a part grace and truth play in achieving definite results 
in the practice of expert friendship. It still remains for us 
to define the ultimate goal of our efforts. 

No more subtle and fatal temptation assails any Christian 
leader than to make of the winning of a soul a personal 
triumph. On one occasion a group of seventy personal 
evangelists returned to Jesus after a campaign of great 
effectiveness. The hosts of evil had been routed. Seem- 
ingly impossible cases had yielded to a gospel of divine 
power, and each of the evangelists was eager to report to 
the Leader the size of the coterie which would in the future 
revolve about himself. But the Leader's rebuke was instant 
and unmistakable. " You have had great power and 
achieved notable results," He said; "nevertheless do not 
rejoice in the fact of a personal triumph because the spirits 
are subject unto you; rejoice rather that your names are 
written in heaven." 

" Your name and mine written in heaven " — not emblaz- 

70 



THE GOAL OF EXPERT FRIENDSHIP 7* 

oned abroad on earth, associated with the men whom we can 
see, but in heaven where no earthly eye can see; simply 
one name among many on the long honor roll of those who 
gave themselves for a great common cause, who, effacing 
self, were the humble instruments in introducing men to a 
divine power without themselves, and who then quietly with- 
drew, leaving these men rooted and grounded in God. For 
" Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that water- 
eth; but God that giveth the increase." There is no surer 
test of whether or not we have reached the goal of expert 
friendship than our answer to this question : " To what 
or to whom have the men with whom we worked been won ? " 
— to ephemeral creature-comforts like light, heat, and 
sociability — or to ourselves — or to Christ? What would 
happen if the creature comforts associated with our build- 
ing should be suddenly wiped out, or if you or I should be 
called elsewhere? Would the structure stand because 
founded on a personal relationship to Christ, or would it fall 
because rooted in such unstable soil as things or human 
beings? When once the actual connection between a man 
and God has been made, our task is done. The sublimest 
example of faith which the world has ever seen, in the 
words of Dr. Alexander McKenzie, was when Jesus dared 
to leave His whole cause for its success or failure in the 
hands of twelve men, nearly every one of whom proved 
false a few hours before He went away. But the contact 
with God had been made by all but one in the three years 
of expert friendship which He had lived with them, and He 
knew He could not ultimately fail. 

The goal of expert friendship in any army or navy camp 
is first of all the discovery of transformed lives who know 
this touch with God and the stirring up of the gift of per- 
sonal evangelism that is in them — for every genuinely trans- 
formed life is also potentially a transforming one. The next 



72 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

step is the banding together of these men to win the untrans-f 
formed. In each company men must next be discovered, or 
transformed, and in like manner united as in the original 
parent group. Whatever be the name under which these 
groups operate — Comrades in Service, Bible Reading 
Groups, Philips and Andrews, Mobile Y M C A's, YMCA 
extensions — their ultimate object is the same: to form a 
nucleus, which, "having salt in itself," shall preserve with- 
out the necessity of superimposed leadership the best tradi- 
tions of the company, and shall be a living witness to the 
attractiveness and wholesomeness of genuine Christian liv- 
ing. This was the simple aim of the most famous group 
of expert friends history records, a little body of twelve 
men, who gathered about a Leader nineteen centuries ago ; 
and transformed a world. 






PART II 
THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 



I gave My life for thee, 

My precious blood I shed, 
That thou might'st ransomed be 

And quickened from the dead; 

I gave, I gave My life for thee, 

What hast thou given for Me? 

My Father's house of light, 

My glory circled throne 
I left, for earthly night, 

For wanderings sad and lone; 

I left, I left it all for thee, 

Hast thou left aught for Me? 

I suffered much for thee, 

More than thy tongue can tell, 
Of bitterest agony, 

To rescue thee from hell; 

I've borne, I've borne it all for thee, 

What hast thou borne for Me? 

And I have brought to thee, 

Down from My home above, 
Salvation full and free, 

My pardon and My love ; 

I bring, I bring rich gifts to thee, 

What hast thou brought to Me? 

Frances R. Havergal. 






CHAPTER I 

FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 

I. Expert Friendship through the Ministry of 
Ideas Rather Than Sensations 

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. — Rom. 
12:2. 

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God. — Matt. 4 : 4. 

So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law 
of God ; but with the flesh the law of sin. — Rom. 7 : 25. 

For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh 
reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of 
the Spirit reap eternal life. — Gal. 6:8. 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
ever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatso- 
ever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and 
if there be any praise, think on these things. — Phil. 4: 8. 

" Low pleasures — these vices come from the need of es- 
caping ennui in moments of leisure, and in escaping from it 
through sensations and not through ideas." — Condorcet. 

Drill, fatigue duty, work in the trenches or in the camp, 
is deadening. A soldier comes in fagged in mind and body. 
He must have something to break the ennui. This can be 
done in two very different ways, by sensations or by ideas. 
The former are always at hand, and a man tired out is in the 

75 



76 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

most favorable condition to yield to them. He wants fierce, 
quick relaxation. The sensations produced by narcotics, 
stimulants, sex in artificial contexts, the excitement of 
gambling — all relieve for the moment, but inevitably result 
in unfavorable reactions. This is relief through dissipation 
of energy. 

There is another and very different form of relief, that 
which comes through the refreshment and comfort furnished 
by great ideas — the ideas that cluster about patriotism, 
religion, home ties, true womanhood, comradeship, and 
honor — whether expressed in music, in poetry, or in prose. 
To let higher emotions flow through and wash out the weari- 
ness and the uncleanness of the mind and soul is to know 
the rest and peace of God which passes understanding. This 
is relief through re-creation. 

True expert friendship to soldiers and sailors will always 
concern itself with the latter form of relief — that of ideas — 
rather than with the former. It is not a question of the 
right or wrong of sensations. The reason is far more funda- 
mental. A ministry through sensations costs the minister 
himself relatively nothing. It is impersonal, and true friend- 
ship can never be impersonal. The ministry through sensa- 
tions requires small preparation and has small permanent 
results, simply because it costs so little. It is always at hand, 
easy to prepare and easy to dispense. Any appeal to the 
sex instinct in artificial contexts, to physical appetite, to the 
sensation of covetousness, as in gambling, takes its toll not 
out of the giver but of the receiver. I can distribute sweets 
or narcotics or stimulants, or appeal to the sex instinct in 
artificial contexts, or hand a pack of cards to a group of 
men and go my way, without a further thought or drain upon 
myself, having paid the price of their entertainment and 
relaxation out of the dissipation of their own energies. It 
is somewhat like inviting a group of friends to a house party 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 77 

and then asking them to foot the bills. Such a ministry 
through sensations is, at its best, the dispensing of " canned 
friendship "— goods prepared by others. It is the same sort 
of dodging of personal responsibility which the rich society 
lady makes who farms out her children to a boarding school 
or to private tutors, that she may not be troubled with their 
upbringing. 

A genuine ministry through ideas, on the other hand, must 
always be intensely personal. It costs the actual life of the 
minister really to interpret a great idea like sacrifice or 
steadfastness or true womanhood to men. It costs, and it 
costs tremendously, and just because it costs life the results 
are large. Such a ministry takes its toll, not out of the 
receiver but of the giver. The minister of ideas does not 
take from other men by dissipation of their energies, but he 
builds them up in a genuine act of re-creation through the 
infusion into their lives of a dynamic fed from his own life 
blood. 

Men are ever hungry for ideas and for personal friend- 
ships which build up. They are soon wearied and sated 
with the monotony of the drain of sensations upon their 
powers. Experience shows that the two ministries do not 
exist side by side for any length of time. There is a con- 
stant temptation to the minister to substitute sensations for 
ideas because of the smaller cost to himself. Yet it is a 
significant fact that when the two are offered side by side 
those who are being ministered to will invariably choose 
ideas. 

Upon this fundamental principle of a ministry of ideas 
rather than of sensations the war work of the Association 
is built up. In the buildings, in place of pictures which 
appeal to the sex instinct in artificial contexts, will be found 
such portrayals of true womanhood as " The Letter to 
Mother," " Mizpah," and " Breaking Home Ties." The pro- 



78 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

gram of the Association is made up of stunts which chal- 
lenge rather than charm, of games which depend upon skill 
rather than chance, and of ideas which remake men — like 
home, nation, God, service, sacrifice, courage, steadfast- 
ness — rather than of appeals to sensations, which fascinate 
for the moment and ultimately dissipate power. 

2. Expert Friendship Through Direct Personal 
Appeal 

And I say unto you, Every one who shall confess me 
before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before 
the angels of God. — Luke 12:8, 9. 

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having 
lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the 
wilderness and go after that which was lost, until he find 
it? — Luke 15:4. 

Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. — 
Matt. 28 : 19. 

And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will 
make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they 
left the nets, and followed him. And going on a little fur- 
ther, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, 
who also were in the boat mending the nets. And straight- 
way he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in 
the boat with the hired servants, and went after him. — 
Mark 1 : 17, 20. 

I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send 
him to my father's house; for I have five brethren; that he 
may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place 
of torment. — Luke 16:27, 28. 

Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we persuade 
men. — II Cor. 5:11. 

There are two theories about the best method to use in an 
effort to win men to a rational and vital faith in God and 
Christ. One is what may be termed the unconscious 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 79 

influence theory : that one's presence and service without the 
direct approach will do more than anything else to induce 
men to become consistent believers. There is a powerful 
spiritual uplift that comes to men through such an uncon- 
scious influence emanating from a true Christian life. But 
most men need patient explanation; they desire to know 
why and how men can live the Christian life. Without the 
direct intimate appeal, this cannot be explained. If one does 
not speak directly and to the point when he feels that it is 
God's will that he should so speak, how are men to face a 
diagnosis of their own condition as others see it? The 
great danger of relying on the power of influence through 
conduct alone is that one will never speak, but be content 
to use his unconscious influence only. Should not one 
always bear in mind that he is a representative of Jestfs 
Christ and can speak as such? The personal influence of 
any one is beggarly beside the riches of Christ, which even 
the most timid person can explain if he himself believes. 
You will remember the reproach that Christ Himself sug- 
gested would come on those who merely lived in His pres- 
ence but themselves did not aid. "And one said unto him, 
Lord, are they few that are saved? And he said unto 
them, Strive to enter in by the narrow door; for many, I 
say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. 
When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut 
to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock 
at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer 
and say to you, I know you not whence ye are : then shall ye 
begin to say, We did eat and drink in thy presence, and thou 
didst teach in our streets ; and he shall say, I tell you, I know 
not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of 
iniquity " (Luke 13 : 23-27) . 

Many evade the direct personal appeal because of the 
reproach it may bring on them for their own inconsistencies. 
\ 



80 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

By use of the direct personal appeal one can make his 
message unmistakably clear, puzzling questions can be 
cleared up, and a great deal about prayer and Bible study 
and the growing richness of Christian living can be 
explained to men who would otherwise see only through a 
glass, darkly. Utter frankness, simplicity, and good will 
will do more to cause men to understand what Christianity 
is than will years of silent conduct, although it goes without 
saying that words, without the life of honesty, love, and 
chastity behind them, will avail nothing. Both are neces- 
sary. " Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord 
shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom 
they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him 
whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear with- 
out a preacher?" (Rom. 10:13, 14). 

All work is judged by its fruits, and no Secretary in an 
army or navy camp, surrounded by comrades exposed to 
greater physical risks than himself, will long continue in a 
passive task of simply a " service " nature, unless it issues 
ultimately in results unmistakably worth while. The men at 
arms about him have many " spots of color " in their lives — 
opportunities for heroism, danger, fighting, the mastery of 
the soil in hard physical labor. These are denied him. If, 
however, when the companies march by his hut or when 
the casualty lists arrive from overseas, his eyes fall upon 
several men whom he has been privileged to introduce to 
Jesus Christ and who he knows have from weak men been 
made strong, and have started a life of Christian disciple- 
ship through his efforts, that — and that alone — will fully 
compensate for the lack of the more martial things. 

Let it not be said of us that, " As thy servant was busy 
here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said 
unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided 
it" (I Kings 20:40). 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 81 



3. Expert Friendship through Personal Example 

I in them, and thou in me. — John 17: 23. 

And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, 
that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, 
Lord, teach us to pray. — Luke 11 : 1. 

The things which ye both learned and received and heard 
and saw in me, these things do. — Phil. 4 : 9. 

Wherefore if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will 
eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not my brother to 
stumble. — I Cor. 8:13. 

All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought 
under the power of any. — I Cor. 6: 12. 

We are dealing with a body of men who consciously or 
unconsciously are on a quest for ideals. They must find 
them among themselves, their officers, or those who serve 
them in other ways. Now that we are to represent Jesus 
Christ to the men in the service, we have the tremendous 
responsibility of living well the Christian life ourselves. 

Necessarily there must be a lot of work on the Sabbath 
in an army or navy camp, but the Association as a rule has 
thought it wise to stage no features on that day except the 
services of the Church. 

The question of tobacco will inevitably come up to any 
Army Secretary. Soon after war was declared the Secre- 
taries in this country were requested by the War Work 
Council not to use tobacco, because competent authorities 
have proved that its use is on the whole detrimental. Of 
course smoking is fairly common in the Army, but the stal- 
wart example of a few healthy men who refuse to become 
the victims of any habit is very stimulating to those who 
have not smoked before and enables them to resist the sug- 
gestion of taking up the practice. 



8a THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

There are many things in the Secretary's personal life 
which men notice and copy, which consequently it is well to 
cultivate. The Secretary may have the picture of some good 
woman in the Testament that he carries in his pocket. This 
has encouraged hundreds to paste their wives' or mothers' 
or sweethearts' pictures in their Testaments and to carry 
them with them. The Secretary may mark his Bible; this 
example will also be copied, and by marking the Scriptures 
many come to discover the true riches therein. 

Kneeling to pray at night, quietly and unostentatiously, 
and offering silent grace before meals, will encourage others 
to do the same. 

Many Secretaries keep a prayer list, in order that they 
may not overlook the objects of their intercession in the 
midst of their many duties. This has encouraged enlisted 
men to do the same. Then, too, faithfulness in attending 
services and taking communion will encourage and suggest 
it to others. So will the practice of systematic giving of 
money for worthy charitable and religious causes, even 
though the gifts be small. Simple, straightforward confes- 
sion of one's religious ideals and moral convictions should 
not be neglected. No one can measure the spiritual results 
in the American Army of the confirmation of General 
Pershing at the front and of President Wilson's words on 
religion. The worker cannot neglect the sources of his own 
power. Habits of chivalry, courtesy, sending a regular 
letter home, are all matters which are propagated in a 
singular way by example. In fact, does it not come down to 
this with us who seek to be the ministers of Jesus to our 
forces on sea and land: a man must incarnate what he 
wishes to inspire. 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 83 



4. Expert Friendship through Uniformity 

For though I was free from all men, I brought myself 
under bondage to all, that I might gain the more ... to 
them that are under the law, as under the law, not being 
myself under the law, that I might gain them that are under 
the law. — I Cor. 9: 19, 20. 

They made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own 
vineyard have I not kept. — Sol. Song 1 : 6. 

Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like 
unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and 
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. — Heb. 2: 17. 

And when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw 
there a man who had not on a wedding-garment: and he 
said unto him, Friend, how earnest thou in hither not hav- 
ing a wedding-garment? And he was speechless. Then 
the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot and 
cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the 
weeping and the gnashing of teeth. For many are called, 
but few chosen. — Matt. 22: 11-14. 

The position of a War Work Secretary in a camp is a com- 
plicated one, in that he is not directly under army control, 
and the fact that he is connected with religion makes him 
especially liable to scrutiny. Men often have higher ideals 
for their leaders than the leaders have for themselves. The 
habits of an army camp are surprisingly uniform. If the 
Secretary does not conform to the regulations in most mat- 
ters of daily life, he will of course be exceedingly con- 
spicuous. 

The minister to our forces is likely to fall short, to some 
degree, of the full sacrifice which is being borne by the 
soldier or sailor. This should cause him some searching of 
heart, to see how nearly he can reach his maximum in ren- 
dering service. 

Many men unwittingly, a few deliberately, allow them- 



84 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

selves exceptions in dress when the staff have decided on a 
uniform rule. Carelessness or selfishness should not creep 
in to spoil a uniform plan which works out best for all 
concerned. Men will do well to keep their hats on when out- 
doors, to be sure their buttons are on and buttoned, that 
they keep their hands out of their pockets, and that they 
are shaven and as neat and trim as an officer. Soldiers 
note these things in an army camp, and the Christian man 
should be faultless in all little matters which require only 
thought fulness and observation. Let no one be afraid to 
throw aside his own personal desires ; the good of all and the 
success of all require adherence to the plans of wise leaders. 
Tardiness to meals and the abuse of passes should be care- 
fully watched and avoided by each man. Late rising and 
poor housekeeping are evils of which Christian Association 
workers must be innocent in the Army or Navy. Gum 
chewing and rough-housing must not be among the work- 
ers' habits, for a Y M C A worker or a chaplain is watched 
more carefully perhaps than any other person in the camp. 
The attempt to pass as military men by leaving off the 
Y M C A insignia often leads to embarrassment with both 
officers and men. All ought to be able to know at a glance 
the Y M C A type, distinct in uniform from officers and 
enlisted men, each man the same clean-cut, consistent Chris- 
tian gentleman, dressed as the other and possessed of the 
same courtesy, patience, poise, and good will. Real consid- 
eration for our task may well cause grave concern over all 
these matters, which are likely to be slighted by civilians. 

Some test questions which may come to an Army Secre- 
tary are these: 

a. Are you presentable to be sent to meet the Colonel 
or General in command, or to deal with him if he should 
come into your building? 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 85 

b. Are you presentable to meet the chaplain, who is a 
commissioned officer and who must be neat? 

c. Are you presentable to meet those whom we represent 
and upon whose generosity our work depends ? 

d. Are you in shape to be sent at once to meet a patient 
in the hospital whose condition may be extremely critical? 

e. Are you presentable to meet some member of an 
ecclesiastical body who may or may not be antagonistic to 
the Association? 

f. Are you presentable to meet the soldiers for whom you 
live and move and have your being as an army Christian 
worker, and who are risking their lives to defend their 
homes and your home? Do we reverence the souls of these 
men? Does "the love of Christ constrain us" to minister 
unto them? 

If one desires sufficiently to meet such tests, he can do so. 
Whenever a man puts a certain spirit into his own personal 
appearance or into selling a stamp, or sweeping up the floor, 
or cleaning out a stove, men will realize that Christ dwells 
in the heart of such a man. 

5. Expert Friendship through Sacrifice 

If any man would come after me let him deny himself, 
and take up his cross, and follow me. — Matt. 16 : 24. 

Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of 
Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer in his 
behalf. — Phil. 1 : 29. 

To be quixotic is one thing, to be Christian is another. 
The first calls for a useless expenditure of energy and life 
for foolish or unworthy purposes, the other demands a will- 
ingness and a readiness to spend life and wealth and oppor- 
tunity for ease and comfort, for wise and unselfish purposes. 



86 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Two ideas should permeate thoroughly the souls of all Chris- 
tian workers: one is that it costs — costs tremendously — 
to save the lives and minds and souls of men; and secondly, 
that the soul of even the meanest man is worth any price 
which God calls upon us to pay for it. 

There is a law, as yet indefinitely stated but surely exist- 
ing, which holds that spiritual leadership depends on equality 
of sacrifice. Paul realized this when he said, " I count all 
things to be loss . . . that I may gain Christ, and be found 
in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that 
which is of the law, but that which is through faith in 
Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith: that 
I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the 
fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his 
death." 

Well-fed, well-dressed members of the clergy, or of the 
Christian Association, if they have made no sacrifice equal 
to or greater than the sacrifice made by soldiers or sailors 
to whom they minister, have very little to offer to men 
under shell fire. A man needs to consider very carefully 
before he asks for exemption from military duty in order 
to do religious work. 

From one staff a young man enlisted, feeling it was his 
duty to let older men take his place in the Y M C A huts 
and that he should bear his share in the fighting line. Many 
urged against this action, saying that he was needed in 
Y M C A work. This verse stood out as the Secretary sought i 
to answer his friends' objections: "He steadfastly set his 
face to go to Jerusalem." Jesus went into the zone of dan- 
ger, conscious of the fact that temporarily his ministry would 
be limited, knowing that in all likelihood death would not 
be far distant. He steadfastly held to His plan. No doubt 
Young Men's Christian Association Secretaries and the 
clergy of His day urged or would have urged Him to stay 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 87 

where He was (Matt. 16:22), but He steadfastly set His 
face toward Jerusalem. Was He quixotic? The evidences 
of Christianity for twenty centuries answer, " No." The 
saying of the Master, " He that loseth his life for my sake 
and the gospel's, shall find it," has long ago been vindicated. 
Spiritual leadership depends on equality of sacrifice. 
Strange things happened among other members of the staff 
from which the young man went into the Army. Those who 
had not given much time to Bible reading and prayer for- 
merly, started to search the Bible and to keep the morning 
watch. Men began again to say, " We never saw it on this 
fashion before." People understand the motive for sincere 
vicarious sacrifice. No one discounts for long the worth 
oi a brother worker's entering into the atonement suffer- 
ings of Christ. When the former Secretary took his place in 
the barracks, men began to come and talk over with him the 
issues of the war and the issues of life and death. The 
Secretary lost his life as a Secretary only to find it again 
in a richer ministry. Should all do this? No. God has a 
plan for every life — if we find that plan we shall not miss 
Dur mounts of transfiguration. 

" O Joy that seekest me through pain, 

I cannot close my heart to Thee; 
I trace the rainbow through the rain, 
And feel the promise is not vain 

That morn shall tearless be. 

Cross that liftest up my head, 
I dare not ask to fly from thee; 

1 lay in dust life's glory dead, 

And from the ground there blossoms red 
Life that shall endless be." 



Who would say that Donald Hankey or Alfred Eugene 



88 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Casalis was quixotic? They suffered and their words have 
power. 

A teacher in a certain college had for many years taught 
his voluntary Bible groups that complete surrender to the 
will of God was the secret of supreme happiness and most 
successful endeavor in every line. He faced the proposition 
of going to a large cantonment as a Y M C A worker. His 
faculty were unwilling to give him the leave of absence that 
was necessary. He struggled to justify staying in his college 
and refusing what was to him a clear call to go to the camp. 
This was impossible in the face of what he had taught the 
scores of students whose lives he had influenced. He settled 
the whole matter. He would resign his professorship, store 
his furniture, give up the little home he had labored years 
to possess, and make plans for his wife, who was to stay 
behind. He gave up his life, in a way — to discover that the 
Spirit of God brings only good gifts to those that love the 
Lord. Sacrifice gives power. He was able to go out and 
enlist dozens of able workers and to instill in them the spirit- 
ual daring necessary for them to separate themselves from 
their positions and follow by faith, as seeing through a glass 
darkly, the beckoning hand of Jesus as He called them into 
the Army Young Men's Christian Association work. There 
is a relation between sacrifice and power to lead in the 
spiritual world. 

A man of fifty in the Northeastern Department felt that it i 
was God's will for him to enter the YMCA service abroad. 
He talked the matter over with his family. His two sons 
about of college age set out to work. They sold the little 
homestead and the gray-haired head of the family enlisted in I 
the work for the spiritual welfare of the soldiers. He made a 
sacrifice; all the hopes of years which clustered around the 
home farm were laid on the altar, and the sacrifice was ac- 



FIVE OUTSTANDING FEATURES 89 

ceptable. Wherever he goes in the army work, he spreads 
the knowledge of the Master's grace and power. Spiritual 
leadership depends upon equality of sacrifice. " If any man 
would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
cross, and follow me." 

Expert friendship, the art of putting the dynamics of 
Christian living into the hearts of men, concerns itself in a 
marked degree with atonement. It seems to be still true 
that there can be no remission of sins without shedding of 
blood. 

Who are the men who are centers of sweetness, who are 
full of the light that is the light of the world ? Who are they 
to whom men in the Army turn for ideas, advice, and for 
the answer to the question, " How shall a man be saved ? " 
They are men who have lived with men and agonized with 
them in their sufferings and struggles. Many ministers have 
given up churches, the building up of whose inner life has 
taken years of their best endeavor; they have given up for 
the period of the war all the comforts of home and the good 
fellowship of books and kindred spirits, pouring their lives 
out in loving service, the best the years have brought to them. 
Many business men and students have done likewise, to find 
that beyond the threshold of sacrifice comes a wider, bigger 
life. There is surely a plan of God for each person, but 
seldom do mere utilitarian arguments of economy and effi- 
ciency hold good in a time when men are giving their lives 
for the abstract although vital moral principles for which 
we fight in this war. In no realm so much as in the spiritual 
does real efficiency depend on soul-searching and honest and 
sane self-denial. 

The soldier must, willingly or unwillingly, yield his all. 
Listen to Rupert Brooke as he speaks of his comrades in 
arms: 



90 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

" Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead ! 

There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, 
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. 

These laid the world away ; poured out the red 

Sweet wine of youth ; gave up the years to be 
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, 
That men call age ; and those who would have been, 

Their sons, they gave, their immortality." 

Blow, bugles, blow ! They brought us, for our dearth, 
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. 

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, 

And paid his subjects with a royal wage; 
And Nobleness walks in our ways again ; 

And we have come into our heritage." 

Can any Christian worker afford to miss a share in such a 
heritage ? 



CHAPTER II 

EXPERT FRIENDSHIP WITHIN THE CAMP CIRCLE 
INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 

i. Expert Friendship at the Counter 

And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not: from henceforth 
thou shalt catch men. — Luke 5 : 10. 

Men come to the counters in the huts for several reasons. 
They come because they are in need of something — writing 
paper, pens and ink, literature, stamps, information, com- 
radeship. Many come simply because they are curious. 
Some come because they are invited or taken by others. Still 
others come because they are attracted by some personality 
there. The question is, whose personality shall this be — 
your personality or mine, or some other human's, or the very 
person of Jesus incarnate in us? 

The men should receive at the counter the things they need 
— 'writing paper, pencils, ink, etc. If they are in search of 
information, their wants should be met. Their curiosity re- 
garding the Association should be satisfied, adequately, cour- 
teously, and without attempt to aggrandize our organization. 
The nature and motive can be put clearly and completely, so 
that it is easily understandable by any man, and should be 
explained to all who inquire. The Army Young Men's 
Christian Association will bear examination and explanation, 
and the motive of love behind it is evidence of the indwelling 
of the life of God in the hearts of men. 

91 



92 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

If one is invited to the counter or building, should he not 
be so wisely and graciously received that he will be interested, 
favorably impressed, and have a desire to return? Much 
turns on the personal equation represented by the Secretary. 
He is the pivotal man. The personality which attracts men to 
the counter is the most important element in our work. 
Briefly stated — this should be the personality of Jesus in- 
carnate in the Secretary. Here is no ordinarily courteous 
post-office clerk, weighing parcels, caring for letters and sell- 
ing stamps and money orders; here, indeed, is not the usual 
type of man found at the information desk; here is not one 
who is merely a cordial, genial, gentlemanly friend, who ad- 
vises and assists in many little ways : here is a man with the 
person of Jesus in him. Such a man is gentlemanly, friendly, 
genial, discreet, tactful, capable of confidence, to be true, 
but he must be also a soul physician, a partner with Jesus in 
the saving of men's souls. He must be able to diagnose, 
and through the healing influences of the Gospel, be able to 
cure soul maladies. 

A boy in the Rhode Island Coast Artillery came to the 
counter for a sheet of writing paper, and turned to go. 
" What company are you in ? " called the friendly Secretary 
after him. The young man stopped, turned around and be- 
came engaged in conversation. A long walk followed, 
a heart-to-heart talk about the things of God, and prayer 
under the stars by the corner of the hut. The young 
man had brought into his life again the steadying power 
of the religion of Christ. Men are ships that pass in the 
night. 'We must will to speak on the things of God. 
Many of the best interviews are obtained by speaking 
to men as they turn to leave the desk. The time is 
short. Never, up to the last minute of the day, should we 
lose our sense of responsibility and high calling. The first 
man who comes in in the morning and the last man at night 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 93 

may be as needy as any others. Can it be that our Christian 
ministry depends on whether we happen to feel fresh or 
tired ? 

The strategic point in all our work is that place, formal 
or informal, where the individual Christian worker comes in 
contact with the individual needy man. For this strategic 
contact the materiel, the great War Work Council, and all 
the departments of the work exist. If we fail here, we indeed 
fail. 

The Y M C A counter should have everything which is 
decent, legitimate, and attractive. Pool tables were rescued 
from the untoward atmosphere of saloons, and pool and bil- 
liards are respectable games accordingly. Light, music, 
geniality, warmth, association with kindred spirits, with which 
the saloon bar has attracted men so long, can be sanctified 
and used in the ministry of expert friendship over the Y M 
C A hut counter. We are fishers of men for Jesus' sake. 
We must use the right bait. Pamphlets which will cause the 
right reaction, used wisely but never promiscuously, will do 
much to strengthen and inform men. The saloons and dis- 
orderly houses exist and thrive because they can and do 
attract men. No man need sell out cheaply to bizarre or 
tawdry ideas — but surely we may well study any place where 
men congregate to see the secret of attraction and, if possible, 
to sanctify and regenerate the agency to the glory of God. 
Successful workers in Y M C A huts are doing this and con- 
stantly keeping the atmosphere of the Christian religion at 
the same time. 

One night when a large group of drafted men was coming 
into camp, a Secretary was selling stamps and answering the 
same questions over and over again to the bewildered new- 
comers. A young lad watched him for quite a time, and then 
slipped over and said, " Say, you don't know how that smile 
helps." The Secretary was not feigning a smile; he genu- 



94 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

inely possessed good will toward those whom he was serving. 
He was angling well that night. 

At another time a young man was watching a Secretary 
at the desk serving as fast as he could and keeping a cheery 
countenance withal. He listened to the gentlemanly and 
kindly tones of the worker for a time, and edging up to the 
counter he leaned over and said : " Say, I didn't know that 
men were so kind before — I don't understand. I'm not used 
to being treated in this way." The Secretary was not slow 
to explain the reason. He, too, knew the art of fishing for 
men. 

2. Expert Friendship through the Writing-desk 

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, So is good news from 
a far country. — Prov. 25 : 25. 

And these things we write, that our joy may be made 
full. — I John 1 : 4. 

Many times, when services have been announced in the 
buildings, we have been tempted to ask that all men cease 
writing and give heed to the speaker. However, we experi- 
mented and found that a courteous request to the men to be 
as quiet as possible, but to continue the writing if they 
desired, was an excellent plan. The groups who wished to 
attend the service gathered at the front, while several dozen 
others continued to write. As the speaker progressed, many 
of the latter became interested and ceased writing to give 
attention to the message. From such indirect ministry many 
good results have been obtained. 

A minister was walking through an officers* ward at the 
Camp Devens hospital when he was spoken to by a lieutenant 
who was confined to his bed. " You don't remember me, Sir," 
said the officer. " I was one of the men seated on the side 
of the room one night at Plattsburg during the officers' camp 






INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 95 

there. I was writing and pretended not to hear the words 
spoken, but something you said changed my life." Here were 
indirect but definitely Christian results. 

Again, during the same officers' training camp, a prominent 
clergyman was speaking. When he concluded, a man who 
had been rather anxious to show that he was indifferent to a 
religious service, took a clean sheet of paper and wrote these 
words upon it: "A pledge for a new life." He turned to a 
friend, sitting beside him at the writing desk, showed him the 
pledge, and put it in a letter addressed to his mother. The 
indirect ministry was efficacious here, when the man would 
only have been antagonized if he had been asked to cease 
writing or leave the room. 

Many times we have had the experience of starting a meet- 
ing with a few men, telling the speaker that he must have a 
message powerful enough to arrest the attention of the scores 
of men who were writing. Some of the best meetings I have 
ever attended have resulted from such situations, in which 
the speaker won his audience by the merit of what he had 
to say. 

The men at the writing-desks are often deeply affected by 
the melodies of the old hymns which those in the meeting 
are singing. 

The writing-desks give an opportunity for the manifesta- 
tion of friendship in many ways. When cleaning up, many 
times I have stopped to talk with a soldier writing home or to 
some friend. We have got into conversation and turned 
from home topics to Him who alone can keep home ties from 
breaking. 

Indirectly, many beneficial results have been obtained by 
the discreet use of posters tacked above the desk containing 
Lincoln's most notable utterances, General Pershing's in- 
structions to the first American Expeditionary Force and 
President Wilson's message to soldiers and his messages con- 



96 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

cerning the Bible and the Sabbath. I have often had men 
get up from a writing-desk after reading the message of our 
President upon the Bible posted before them, and ask for a 
New Testament. A short, well-printed message on a poster 
or a good picture before a man as he writes will often carry 
a thought to the very core of his heart when he is too tired 
or too indifferent to listen to a discourse. Somewhere about 
the building will of course be found such suggestions as 
"When did you write home last ? " and " Have you written 
that letter home ? " 

The friendly ministry of the writing-tables will do much 
to help keep the home fires burning, creating a chain of letters 
and messages of good will. 

3. Expert Friendship through Formal Religious 
Services 

That they may all be one. — John 17:21. 

That there should be no schism in the body; but that the 
members should have the same care one for another. — I 
Cor. 12:25. 

This do in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat 
this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death 
till he come. — I Cor. 1 1 : 25, 26. 

So also ye, unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to 
be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for 
ye will be speaking into the air. — I Cor. 14:9. 

One of the finest religious services in the camp is com- 
munion. It is well to have both the liturgical and the non- 
liturgical forms, so that men can go to the one they are 
accustomed to attend. Many men are unable to get away 
from duty each Sunday, and it has been found a wise plan 
to have communion every Sunday in each hut, so that a man 
can attend if he feels so inclined. Of course a " close " com- 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 97 

munion is out of place in an army camp. Cleanliness and 
quietness in a building during the service will do much to add 
to its power. 

Many speakers to enlisted men in religious addresses fail 
because of the lack of preparation and lose the attention of 
their audience by some such initial statement as, " I am going 
to be brief," or, " I am not prepared." Others sometimes do 
not impress the men because they relate how much they have 
sacrificed to come. The soldiers understand pretty thor- 
oughly what sacrifice is and what it means. 

The best sermons for soldiers, or for any one, seem to be 
upon spiritual themes, letting the men draw their own lessons 
and analogies. Any attempt to use the address as a vehicle 
for denominational propaganda will of course fall flat. Oft- 
times the similes between the spiritual and the army life, 
made by speakers, are grotesque and inaccurate, and one 
thereby loses some of the respect the men might have for his 
ideas, they reasoning, no doubt, that he might be inaccurate 
in other matters also. 

Careful preparation by the speaker, prayer with him by the 
Secretary before the address, quietness and dignity in the 
building, the selection of peaceful, well-known songs, will do 
much to make a meeting attractive and spiritually beneficial 
to tired men. It is always well to inform the speaker as to 
the characteristics of the crowd of men to whom he is to 
speak, for no two crowds are exactly alike. It is also ad- 
visable to have one's introduction of the speaker well thought 
out. Careless and impromptu introductions are often dis- 
astrous. We have found that men are generally able to 
crowd their message into twenty or twenty-five minutes, and 
that such addresses are more acceptable to the men than the 
longer discourses. It is better to have more talks and to 
have them short than to have long ones. 

The use of capable officers and enlisted men for religious 



98 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

addresses is often productive of abiding spiritual results. 

A great many soldiers are away from post Sundays, who 
thereby miss any service if they do not attend in some town. 
To provide for these men and to demonstrate that religion 
is an integral part of the week day as well as of Sunday, it 
has been found very successful to have some sort of mid- 
week service. These have been conducted along the lines 
indicated above. 

Take any environment you will, and men will listen to the 
spoken word, and give heed to it, if presented in a Christ-like 
manner. The friendly ministry of preaching the Gospel has 
always had charm and power, and will continue to have it as 
long as men will pay the price to be worthy preachers of the 
word. 

One word of caution should be added regarding public 
evangelism in an army camp. The soldier is susceptible to 
strong emotions and is wont to yield quickly to any strong 
appeal. This puts an especial burden upon us to be fair and 
honorable in our mass religious appeals. An evangelist of 
commanding personality or authority can by direct commands 
and appeals bring to his aid what has become an almost 
instinctive obedience on the part of the men and get hasty 
decisions which may react later in untoward ways. Is it 
not best to be always eager and willing to present the claims 
of Christ in the hand-to-hand work through the numerous 
touches we have with men every hour of the day in our camps, 
and to stage our larger evangelistic meetings so that while 
they lack nothing in directness of appeal and vigor in the pre- 
sentation of the Gospel, they will still wisely recognize the 
often tender emotional state of these men and the compara- 
tive ease with which decisions may be gotten ? There is little 
danger in having a chaplain who is to live with his men in the 
days following the evangelistic appeal call for decisions. 
Decisions are all important, but should not a strong effort be 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 99 

put forth to explain adequately what the Christian life is, and 
its demands, before we urge them upon a somewhat inflam- 
mable audience? These suggestions are put down while at 
the same time we hold the heartiest sympathy with a strong, 
sane evangelistic program, which we believe was and is 
Christ's wish. 

We are " not ashamed of the gospel ; for it is the power of 
God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Neverthe- 
less, in our presentation, especially in public evangelism, we 
shall do well to be as nearly perfect as possible and be sure 
that everything is done decently and in order, with wisdom 
and with expediency. 

4. Expert Friendship after the Address 

But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, 
passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth 
it not. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence 
I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, 
swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with 
himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they 
enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man 
becometh worse than the first. — Matt. 12 : 43-45. 

And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the 
place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a 
certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: 
and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and 
came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them 
oil and wine ; and he set him on his own beast, and brought 
him to an inn, and took care of him. — Luke 10 : 32-34. 

An address has been given, the speaker has been able to 
make issues clear and to persuade men to come to a decision. 
About the room you will see many men with sober faces — 
men who honestly want to take a new forward step in life, 
perhaps to change their lives entirely. There is a question 



ioo THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

upon their faces; instinctively they are looking about for 
some one in whom they can confide. Such a person must 
be discreet, genuinely Christian, and capable of keeping confi- 
dential statements to himself. Look back into your own life 
and see if in such cases you did not rely upon some such 
friend for help. The Secretary can, if he is the right sort 
of man, be a guide in these hours of decision, which mean so 
much in after years. A great danger lies in thinking the 
main work is done when the address is over. William James 
has remarked : " When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is 
allowed to evaporate without bearing practical fruit, it is 
worse than a chance lost. It works so as positively to hinder 
future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path 
of discharge." 

The value of a little room for quiet talks can hardly be 
overestimated. These are available to the Secretary and to 
voluntary or regular chaplains in nearly every building. In 
many camps the keeping of special office hours in the building 
by the Secretaries and chaplains has not been entirely suc- 
cessful, due to the uncertainty of men's being free at stated 
hours. The best work is generally done by the workers 
making themselves available when the men are free. 

To follow up, to be a strong hand to a man going up hill 
with difficulty, to be an answering voice to the inarticulate 
questions of men in decisive hours, is to get a new light 
upon the beauties of expert friendship. 

He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of John, 
lovest thou me? . . . And he said unto him, Lord, thou 
knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus 
saith unto him, Feed my sheep. — John 21 : 17. 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 101 

5. Expert Friendship through Discussion and Bible 
Groups and Inner Circles 

Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the cus- 
tom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much 
the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh. — Heb. 10 125. 

Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; 
and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remeny 
brance was written before him, for them that feared Jeho- 
vah, and that thought upon his name. — Mai. 3: 16. 

For where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them. — Matt. 18:20. 

Christian workers cannot expect to reach every member of 
a large camp individually. To exercise the widest possible 
Christian influence requires the multiplication of Christian 
workers and ideals among the choicest of the members them- 
selves. How best to do this is a crucial question. Unless it 
is done, the work will be seriously limited in any camp of 
considerable proportions. 

It is significant that Jesus chose twelve disciples to act as 
His volunteer helpers and advisers, and to carry out His plans 
and teachings. The inner circle plan of work has proven 
effective in a great many camps. Sometimes an inner circle 
has been organized in every company in camp. The value of 
such a group of men, with their leavening influence and the 
upward pull which the group has on their own lives, can 
hardly be overestimated. 

At one of the great officers' training camps in the summer 
of 1917 an inner circle group was formed in every company. 
The same idea was duplicated later in several regiments in 
one of the large cantonments. This type of procedure has 
proved especially effective wherever it has been tried. 

In such groups one can advance ideas on Bible study. The 
Secretary can show his own Bible, marked and underscored. 



102 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

He can tell men his own struggles for victory and guide them 
along a road which he must have battled up himself. Here 
is the place for absolute frankness and soul-searching. Five 
or six men sit about on cots or on the floor. The Secretary 
or one of the men will lead the discussion, as they seek 
unitedly to attack the evils of the camp or clean out the devil 
on the inside of themselves. Suggestion is the best ally of 
one who would successfully lead an inner circle. One can 
suggest that the men kneel by their bedsides to say their 
prayers at night. Open reading of the Bible is hard for 
many timid men who are especially tender on religious things. 
Encouragement will help here. One might read paragraphs 
like the following from the famous " Plattsburg Manual " : 

"After supper you generally have some spare time until 
taps. The Y M C A generally provides a place supplied 
with Bibles, newspapers, good magazines, and writing mate- 
rial. Don't be ashamed to read the Bible. Don't forget 
to write to the folks back home." 

— The Plattsburg Manual, p. 14. 

FINAL SUGGESTIONS 

" Don't be profane or tell questionable stories to your 
bunkies or around the company. There is a much greater 
number of silent and unprotesting men in camp than is gen- 
erally supposed, to whom this is offensive. Keep every- 
thing on a high plane. 

— The Plattsburg Manual, p. 20. 

Or the following from the " Home Reading Course for 
Citizen Soldiers," issued by the War Department: 

"A second tradition of the American Army, which need 
only be mentioned, is that of fighting fairly and treating 
even the enemy with as much humanity as his own conduct 
will permit. As for slaughtering or enslaving the civilian 
population of captured territory, attacking prisoners, or 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 103 

assaulting women, American soldiers would as little com- 
mit such crimes in time of war as in time of peace. In this 
respect most of the civilized nations of the world think 
alike." 

Every influence that can be brought to bear on one's group 
to encourage and strengthen them as they go out into the 
barracks to be the disciples and witnesses of Jesus is needed. 
Often a good poem will stir the hearts of the little group. 
A matter of prime importance is that the leader should be 
prepared, the purpose clearly defined, and that the hour be 
most punctually preserved. The good sense and wisdom of 
the Secretary will tell him whether fruit or other food should 
be provided. In one camp I have used fruit to very good 
advantage. 

The "battle strength" of these groups is tremendous. 
Men who boost an idea with a purpose behind them can do a 
great deal. Likewise a united, well-directed resistance is 
effected. 

In one group, after a very frank discussion of individual 
temptations, a young man tarried behind. He confessed his 
weakness and sought a plan for victory. He found it. Later, 
in an officers' camp, another man in an inner circle was told 
of this fight for victory. He said he, too, was fighting that 
sin in his life and wanted victory above anything else in the 
world. He found the way out by the grace of God, and now 
is a lieutenant, while the former man is now a captain in the 
artillery. Both discovered the secret of personal power and 
leadership in the comradeship and influence of these little 
groups. 

It has often proved most effective to have one sentence to 
leave in the minds of the men, such as, " Never look the 
second time," if the men are facing sex temptations and the 
like. The one idea, " Practice the near presence of Christ," 
has helped many to find reality in religion and to check pro- 



104 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

fanity and obscenity in their speech. It is well to leave a 
single idea sticking like a chestnut burr in the mind of every 
one of the men when they leave for their barracks. 

6. Expert Friendship in the Upper Room 

And he will show you a large upper room furnished: 
there make ready. And they went, and found as he had 
said unto them : and they made ready the passover. 

And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the 
apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire 
I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. 
— Luke 22: 12-15. 

Jesus took His disciples into an upper room apart, that they 
might be with Him, that they might have quiet, that they 
might have fellowship, and might plan together. 

In the summer of 1916 two tents were placed back of an 
Army Y M C A building. In these tents the Secretaries 
lived. A few choice books were there, some readable 
pamphlets, and occasionally something to eat. These tents 
served as a retreat from the uniformed rigor of the camp. 
Here men found a place to gather for a quiet half-hour or 
hour of Bible study. Here men poured out stories of sin 
and soul misery. Here letters were written that restored 
again the bonds of love between husband and wife. Here 
men stricken with loathsome diseases found a message of 
hope. Men who had never faced Christian decision came 
to face it here. Men who cursed the Army and complained 
that it offered no exercise for their brains were challenged 
by the job in front of them, if they attempted to raise the 
moral and spiritual level of their company. 

At one of the great officers' training camps in the sum- 
mer of 1917 a like place was provided — a few choice books, 
some good pamphlets on relevant subjects, a rendezvous for 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 105 

men in need of friendship and sympathy and for the things 
of God which steady one in a time of stress. Here wills 
were drawn up, and life-work decisions framed. One day 
a Jewish boy came up and unburdened his heart to a Sec- 
retary, who was a man of mature spiritual experience. The 
Hebrew soldier related a spiritual experience similar to that 
of many young soldiers. On enlisting for the first time he 
had a sense of abandon of self. He had yielded to another 
will, he was no longer his own master, and he had voluntarily 
sought this new relationship. In these particulars the sur- 
rendering of one's all was like unto complete surrender or 
obedience to the will of God. From this initial experience 
men generally travel in one of two directions, the road of 
fatalism or the road of faith in God. Few men are neutral 
religiously in the Army. They are generally, knowingly or 
unknowingly, definitely good men or bad men. 

The young Jewish man in question was at the parting of 
the ways. The Secretary had a clear, certain message both 
about the Saviour, Jesus, and also about the God revealed 
in the Old Testament. The soldier, a Yale man, listened 
intently. " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, for they shall be filled." At length, 
after the comfort of the words spoken to which he could 
assent with his head as well as with his heart, he simply 
said : " I will grant you your Jesus, if you will grant that 
we all may have a little spark of what He had in perfection." 
Here was a young man hungry, here was a man satisfied in 
his soul. The weeks that followed witnessed great changes 
in his life and a new light in his eyes. 

In the "upper room" a young engineer about to sail for 
France reconsecrated himself and left to make the great 
adventure with the word of God in his pocket and the peace 
of God in his heart, although he had tears streaming down 
his face. 



io6 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

An orphan boy, ignorant of many of the common decencies 
of life, was taught self-respect and respect for others in that 
quiet retreat. He was shown the meaning of living the 
Christian life. He was guided into Bible study and strength- 
ened in his fight for character through the weeks that passed 
at that camp. Out of the bondage of ignorance, deliverance 
was proclaimed to the captive, the garment of praise was 
given him for the spirit of heaviness. 

A trumpeter used to call in very often to play the piano. 
He was interested in some books, later became a frequenter 
of the "upper room," and through thoughtful leading he 
came to know the Master as his personal Lord and Friend. 

In the upper room, Tim, a little Irish lad of seventeen 
from New York City, came to understand the meaning of 
Christian friendship and the reality of faith in God and in 
prayer to Him. Tim had fabled about his age and enlisted 
in the cavalry. Through the comradeship in the upper room 
he came to make all matters straight, and his feet were kept 
on the solid ground of Christian living at the most crucial 
time in a boy's life. 

On one occasion a Secretary from one of our finest uni- 
versities talked with a sergeant in the regular Army from 
dinner time until mess call for supper about the claims of 
Jesus on his life. The Secretary drew his Testament from 
his pocket and read about the love of God and the power 
of sin. Some way, the grace of God abiding in the Secre- 
tary, his utter frankness, and the power of the Bible, pierc- 
ing even to the dividing of the bones and the marrow, broke 
down the bulwark it had taken years to build. Eagerly 
the sergeant poured out chapter after chapter of his life, a 
tale of lust and degradation, of attempts to live honorably, 
and of failure. His soul, so long held in check, seemed to 
leap and exult in this new opportunity for living. They 
knelt in prayer together. There was more joy in heaven 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 107 

over that sinner that repented than over ninety and nine 
just persons. He made a daily appointment with the Secre- 
tary for Bible study and for prayer. Living the Christian 
life meant confessing to things which under military law 
would put him in prison. He confessed and was sent to 
Governor's Island Military Prison. He was tried and paid 
the penalty. The Gospel preached to him was a complete 
Gospel, that brought love and grace and peace, but demanded 
reparation, repentance, righteousness, and consistency. It 
challenged all his manhood, and he rose to meet it. He 
served his sentence in restitution for his sins. The last 
heard of this sergeant was that he had been recommended 
for a commission. 

Your " upper room " will be productive of much good 
through its quietness and through the interviews you have 
there with men and with God. 

7. Expert Friendship through the Ministry of 
Policing 

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 
who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being 
on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied 
himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the 
likeness of men. — Phil. 2 : 5-7. 

Jesus riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments; 
and he took a towel, and girded himself. Then he pour- 
eth water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' 
feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was 
girded. So he cometh to Simon Peter. He saith unto 
him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and 
said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou 
shalt understand hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou 
shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash 
thee not, thou hast no part with me. — John 13 : 4-8. 

A servant is not greater than his lord; neither one that 
is sent greater than he that sent him. — John 13 : 16. 



108 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Peter saith unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee 
even now? I will lay down my life for thee. Jesus answer- 
eth, Wilt thou lay down thy life for me? Verily, verily, I 
say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied 
me thrice. — John 13 : 37, 38. 

He that is the greater among you, let him become as the 
younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. — Luke 
22 : 26. 

Every Army Secretary should study carefully the ministry 
of Jesus. In that ministry Jesus washed the disciples' feet. 
" He that would be greatest of all, let him be servant of all." 
There are situations where the buildings, dugouts, or tents 
are so undermanned that it would be impossible for the Sec- 
retaries to do all the policing of the establishment. No 
doubt in such cases details of soldiers are legitimate and may 
conscientiously be asked for and accepted. However, if a 
Secretary does not do some of the menial, dirty work about 
the place, will he not miss just what Jesus gained when He 
washed the disciples' feet? There is a dangerous gratifica- 
tion which comes from having your work so well spoken 
of and so popular that the commanding officer sends you 
details to help do the work. The test is, do these men do 
the work in the spirit which caused the men of Jesus' time 
to remark: "We never saw it on this fashion"? Many 
men have been led into a knowledge of Jesus and into the 
Christian life through beginning to talk with Secretaries who 
were cleaning the floor and doing like homely tasks. 

This leads us immediately to examine into the secret of 
volunteer help and leadership. Jesus understood this thor- 
oughly, leaving His whole plan in the hands of volunteer 
workers whose feet He had but lately washed. The secret 
of laying hold upon the hearts of men so that they will assist 
your enterprise of expert friendship comes by doing the 
very meanest task yourself. From such an abandon of self 



INSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 109 

to one's cause, from the homely ministry of cleaning up 
floors or even less desirable tasks, comes a certain gripping 
influence that allows one to go out and enlist other men. 
There is a leadership which can be maintained whereby 
others can be got to do the dirty jobs, but the secret of 
spiritual leadership and of volunteer cooperation at its best 
comes by the foot-washing method, whereby men see that we 
are willing to abandon self as Jesus did. To such a com- 
radeship men will respond. People understand such love 
without explanation, or, if explanation is needed, it can be 
brought to issue in spiritual decision. Cleaning up a tent or 
a building can be done with such a Christ-like spirit that it 
will be a true manifestation of the atonement, a suffering 
for another, a bearing of a burden vicariously because of 
constraining love. 

In one tent during the summer of 1917, serving New York 
National Guardsmen, a Secretary was working under great 
pressure. He arose before the men to clean the tables and 
police the floors. He labored after the men had gone to 
bed. This unobtrusive, yet indefatigable worker won the 
hearts of the boys. They asked to be allowed to help and 
voluntarily approached the Colonel of the regiment, who 
gladly detailed a squad from among their own number 
to do the morning house-cleaning. And when, some weeks 
later, the New York Guardsmen passed on into other hands, 
the discerning Secretary began again, with the new unit 
assigned to him, to do all of the policing himself, content 
to serve until such time as the homely task should seem 
to the new men, as it always had to him, to be a privilege to 
be shared rather than a drudgery to be avoided. How much 
better to have help come voluntarily than compulsorily, 
through details which may be secured, when the hearts of 
the men may not be in the project ! " He that would be 
greatest of all, let him be servant of all." 



CHAPTER III 

EXPERT FRIENDSHIP WITHIN THE CAMP CIRCLE 
OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 

i. Expert Friendship on the Night of the 
Recruit's Arrival in Camp 

Thy people offer themselves willingly 

In the day of thy power (marg., army), in holy array: 

Out of the womb of the morning 

Thou hast the dew of thy youth. 

— Psalm no: 3. 

For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me 
in; naked, and ye clothed me. . . . Inasmuch as ye did it 
unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it 
unto me.— Matt. 25 : 35, 36, 40. 

It would be well if every Army and Navy Secretary should, 
at not too infrequent intervals, leave the cantonment in 
which he is working and in whose management, wholesome 
moral surroundings, and kindly fellowship, he has come, 
from long experience, to have unshaken confidence, and 
make his way to some city from which draftees are about 
to start to take their places in the National Army. The 
surging crowd of relatives and friends on the station plat- 
form — brave little women struggling hard to keep back the 
tears, strong men of mature years with unwonted lines of 
tenderness and moral earnestness on their faces, chums 

no 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING in 

and companions of the bench or desk attempting to hide 
emotion under an enforced boisterousness and gaiety — all 
these pictures will be stamped indelibly on his memory, to rise 
before him at some future hour when the long lines of 
draftees in civilian clothing making their way into camp 
have become such a familiar sight as almost to escape atten- 
tion. As the train pulls out of sight amid the cheering and 
waving of flags, he who is privileged to remain in the midst 
of those who are left behind will literally feel the pall of 
silence and loneliness which suddenly passes over the plat- 
form. He will see here and there a woman fall in a dead 
faint, and he will watch the crowd disperse up the streets 
walking by ones and twos and rarely exchanging a word. 

Neither the boys who have gone nor the friends who 
remain have any intelligible idea of what the Great Adven- 
ture is, which began with the departure of the train. To 
most civilians the Army is an unfathomable mystery, to be 
respected and supported and avoided. It takes the ordinary 
man or woman a long time to make up his mind to visit 
an army camp for the first time. Until they have been 
through the initiation few civilians will sit down beside a 
man in uniform on a train unless invited, and the majority 
approaching the gates of a camp for the first time bear 
unmistakable evidence on their faces that they expect to be 
shot at sunrise. 

If this be true of those who voluntarily enter an army 
camp, what must be the mental states of those who come as 
it were perforce — loneliness at parting, fear as to the treat- 
ment they may receive, oftentimes actual cold and hunger 
due to failure to observe instructions in the midst of excite- 
ment, abject confusion in the great common sleeping-room 
for those who have always before slept in the privacy of a 
single room, and above all the craving to confide — to confide 
the tender things of home and sweetheart which every blessed 



H2 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

mother's son has in his heart, but which he is doing his best 
to make his mates believe are not there. 

The importance of the ministry of expert friendship at 
such an hour, lies in the fact that initial impressions are 
abiding. Men never forget the kindness of the first hours. 

The initial task of expert friendship is the ministry of 
reassurance — to confirm the newcomers wholeheartedly in 
their belief in the goodness of their officers and the unfail- 
ing personal interest of the latter in their men — let no one 
hesitate to do this without reserve, for the most beautiful 
thing about the New Army is the big-brother attitude of the 
officers and the permanent personnel. Next in importance 
is the ministry to immediate personal needs — physical, men- 
tal, social, and spiritual. Many requests from newcomers 
may seem childish and foolish, but the cravings which 
prompt them are real. Within a week these requests will 
seem as foolish to the men who made them. But to grant 
requests within reason to men in a confused state of mind 
is often the best way to show them how unessential they 
are. Hardly less important is the ministry of liaison with 
the home. Paper, envelopes, stamps, pens, pencils, ink, 
should be accessible in adequate supply. Oftentimes for 
those who have not learned to write, actual assistance must 
be given in composing the letter. 

The religious appeal must not be overdone, but the expert 
friend never forgets that initial decisions are momentous. 
The hearts of men are open and impressionable. A little 
group of two or three who, on the first night, naturally, and 
without either cowardice or Pharisaism, kneel by the cot 
and pray before retiring has often set the moral and religious 
standards of a whole company for all time. In few places 
is it more necessary to counsel men in the words of a great 
maker of men, " Hide when tempted to show, show when 
tempted to hide." 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 1 13 

In many camps draftees are now detained in barracks in 
quarantine for the first two weeks after arrival. At the 
invitation of the officers, religious services held by the Army 
Secretaries for the first two Sundays in every barracks or in 
the open air, educational lectures during the week on the 
reasons why America is at war, and recreational or social 
entertainments after evening mess, give opportunities for 
the practice of expert friendship never before offered in any 
Army. 

To such a ministry let no Secretary ever become hardened 
or indifferent. Before each opportunity let him closet him- 
self and live through again his own initial experiences in 
leaving home. Let him visualize the mothers and the sweet- 
hearts and the fathers on the station platform, and if a tear, 
warm with the feeling of great tenderness, does not spring 
to his eyes as the long lines of bewildered youth in civilian 
clothing file in through the gate from the outside world, 
let him face about and return to his room, to wrestle like 
Jacob with the angel until he obtain the unction of the spirit 
of tenderness 

2. Expert Friendship through Recreational and 
Social Leadership 

And Jesus advanced in . . . stature and in favor with 
. . . men. — Luke 2 : 52. 

And by faith in his name hath his name made this man 
strong, whom ye behold and know: yea, the faith which is 
through him hath given him this perfect soundness in the 
presence of you all. — Acts 3: 16. 

Contacts and acquaintances with men are made more easily 
in hours of recreation, through sports and social gatherings, 
than in any other way. Educational work, such as lectures 
on the causes and issues of the war, or French and English 



H4 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

classes, will not appeal to all; religious work, vital as it is, 
will attract only a certain per cent. ; but the recreational and 
social appeal meets with a well-nigh universal response. 
The Army is composed entirely of physically fit men, mostly 
in the period of life in which they love games. Nearly every 
one will take part in some physical contest and all crave 
social entertainment. 

The recreational and social director has a great opportun- 
ity to develop in the timid and bashful the qualities of 
sociability and the soldierly essentials of courage and aggres- 
siveness. The idea is rather to get the great majority to 
participate, than to have an all-star contest or an enter- 
tainment participated in by a few. 

Because the recreational and social Secretary has such an 
easy and constant approach to men, he is in danger of set- 
ting a lower value upon that approach and contact. How- 
ever, the burden is upon him to substitute clean sport for 
gambling, clean entertainment for questionable, and through 
his many and varied dealings with his followers to strike 
hard at all camp evils. The prevalence of gambling in a 
regiment should cause every recreational or social Secretary 
connected with that unit grave searchings of heart as to the 
adequacy and real efficiency of his own program and should 
rouse a determination on his part to find something more 
interesting and compelling to replace it. Very often men 
will listen more quickly to an athlete or an athletic director 
than to any one else. To a ministry which has a universal 
appeal and many situations which make for friendliness and 
confidence, the recreational and social Secretary is called. 
From him to whom much is given, much will be required. 

The object of our athletic and social work is not merely 
to run off a series of games or shows, nor is it primarily to 
develop muscle or talent; it is rather to provide diversion, 
to put a spot of fun and good fellowship into the day of 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 115 

the man in uniform. It enables him to let off steam, if you 
please, and to find relief from fatigue, ennui, and that sup- 
pression of self which for the major part of the day must 
be found in every well-disciplined organization. 

Let the leader be alive to his chances, and it will be strange 
if some who come to play baseball or to watch a movie will 
not occasionally linger to find more abiding re-creation in 
speaking to a sympathetic friend about the things of the 
spirit, home, loved ones, and the Saviour of us all. 

3. Expert Friendship through Educational 
Leadership 

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. — Rom. 
12: 2. 
For I know whence I came and whither I go. — John 8 : 14. 

Our Gospel demands a clear understanding of things to 
which men give their fullest allegiance. Men are asked to 
give their fullest allegiance to the cause of the Allied Entente. 
Thousands are brought to camp who do not know the issues 
at stake, and may be more or less lukewarm. Just here 
the Association has the opportunity to show why we are 
in the war and why we must win it. The best authorities 
on the subject have been procured and have spoken to hun- 
dreds of thousands of our soldiers and sailors. Some won- 
der why we send an army to France or Italy or Russia. A 
good lecture or talk on the subject will generally cause such 
men to be satisfied in their own minds and will reduce dis- 
content and bickering. Nor will a single lecture suffice to 
keep the minds of men satisfied. Different speakers on dif- 
ferent phases have successfully come at periodic intervals 
and presented the case to the soldier or sailor. Under fatigue 
men are bound to lose perspective and allow enthusiasm 
to lag. Second only to the definitely spiritual addresses we 



n6 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

would place the discourse which shows in simple language 
the reasons why we are at war and the necessity for united 
action with men who speak a different language from our 
own. 

The Army faces the problem of having thousands of non- 
English speaking people in the ranks. To these the Associa- 
tion devotes expert teachers, who free them from the bond- 
age of illiteracy and enable them to take their place with the 
native-born citizens in our army. 

We expect to win the war in Europe. The French are 
our comrades in arms, and to work together to the best 
advantage we must train our soldiers, especially officers 
and non-commissioned officers, to speak French. This is 
being done with great success, and will do much to strengthen 
the bond between the two peoples. 

The best books, posters, magazines, and pictures on the 
war are also part of the educational work for the soldier. 
Through the splendid efforts of the American Library Asso- 
ciation, branch libraries are being established in nearly every 
building. 

Inevitably, any set program or attempt to reproduce a 
regular school curriculum will fail, because of the move- 
ment of troops and unexpected military formations, but by 
adjustment to the military program and by the wise use of 
available men and strict adherence to standardized texts, 
many men who have for the first time an awakened intel- 
lect are fed mentally and overcome ignorance and illiteracy. 
It is a friendly man who teaches another to write and read 
and speak the language of the country he is in, and it is a 
friendly man who informs the soldier why he wears the 
uniform and for what we fight. Such tasks are a part of 
the wide work of the Educational Secretary, whose aim is 
to help the Government to produce intelligent Christian 
soldiers. 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 117 



4. Expert Friendship in the Barracks and at Mess 

The kingdom of God is in the midst of you. — Luke 
17: 21. 

I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's throne 
is; and thou holdest fast my name, and didst not deny my 
faith. — Rev. 2 : 13. 

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace one with another. 
— Mark 9 : 50. 

And it came to pass, when he had sat down with them 
to meat . . . their eyes were opened and they knew him. — 
Luke 24:30, 31. 

Barracks life gets monotonous, and the group life of men 
here is the same as it is everywhere; unless moral leaders 
are raised up, morale is bound to decline. The foul men 
are always the noisiest at first, hence those who believe in 
better things should at once be encouraged to stand for them. 
In other words, the decent men should be organized as soon 
as possible. Many officers are powers for good in frowning 
on obscenity and in maintaining the spirits of their charges. 
Perhaps the greatest single contribution within the ranks 
can be rendered by former War Work Secretaries who have 
responded to the draft. But morale is no spontaneous 
growth, even among the choicest souls; it must be devel- 
oped, traditions established, precedents maintained. Says 
William James: 

" The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs 
anonymously is now known to be the silliest of absurdities. 
Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part 
of inventors great or small and imitation by the rest of us; 
these are the sole factors active in human progress. Indi- 
viduals of genius show the way and set the patterns which 
common people then adopt and follow. The rivalry of the 
patterns is the history of the world. 



n8 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

" Our democratic problem thus is stated in ultra-simple 
terms. Who are the kind of men whom our majorities shall 
follow ? Whom shall they trust as rightful leaders ? " 

Much can, of course, be done at the start from outside. I 
recall one Secretary, who went about for several weeks 
last winter during the severest weather, mailing packages 
and providing games, stamps, and writing materials for 
hundreds of quarantined men. Educational talks and 
religious services were conducted and the tedium of the 
quarantine broken. The men affectionately dubbed this bar- 
racks circuit rider " Santa Claus." 

But the real solution of the problem of the barracks is the 
discovery of leadership among the men themselves and the 
inculcation of ideas which they can work out personally. 
Barracks life will develop character or it will blemish char- 
acter; it behooves the Secretary so to influence the leaders 
that the group may live together, when he is absent, on the 
up-hill grade instead of on the down-hill. 

There is no inherent reason why every company unit in 
the Army or Navy should not have developed within it, 
under the wise guidance of War Work Secretaries, a minia- 
ture mobile Y M C A organization, with its soldier or sailor 
Executive head, Recreational, Educational, and Social Secre- 
taries, and three soldier or sailor Religious Work Secretaries 
to represent Catholics, Hebrews, and Protestants, respec- 
tively. There is scarcely a barracks in any camp which does 
not now contain a nucleus of men trained in war work 
methods as standardized by the Y M C A, Knights of Co- 
lumbus, and Jewish Welfare Board. The latent athletic, 
educational, religious, musical, and other entertainment | 
resources of the company should be mobilized and carefully 
developed, and equipment for the future secured, so that 
the moment regular organized supervision from outside is 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 119 

withdrawn the company, " having salt within itself," whether 
in barracks, tents, or on troop trains or transports, may 
redeem with wholesome sports and stunts and with stim- 
ulating ideas that most dangerous of all periods, the time 
when men are off duty without leadership. 

While the Secretary is not privileged to live and sleep 
with the men in the barracks, he generally eats with them 
at least twice each day, and he is probably observed more 
carefully by critical eyes during these two short periods 
than at any other time he is in contact with his soldier or 
sailor parish. At no time has he a better opportunity than 
when at table to inculcate by example habits of neatness, 
unselfishness, courtesy, and thoughtfulness. A Secretary 
who comes to mess unshaven, or with dirty hands or cloth- 
ing, forfeits all further chance to influence men who are 
daily trained to observe these things. Men mark at once 
and judge mercilessly representatives of a Christian organiza- 
tion who help themselves first to food, satisfy their own 
needs abundantly without considering the size of portions 
left for the others at table, are impatient if food is not 
served at once or if the supply gives out, bring special 
delicacies for their own particular use, take food sur- 
reptitiously from other tables, grumble over the way the 
meals are cooked, or are noisy and sloppy in the handling 
and cleaning of dishes. Nothing causes greater hidden 
resentment among those who prepare and serve the mess 
than a request for special privileges, such as extra helpings 
or meals served late to tardy boarders, for both of these 
things take from supplies and from time which rightfully 
belong to the servers. It is an excellent rule, if one finds 
he is even a few seconds late to mess, to face about and 
either go without the meal or procure food elsewhere. It 
goes without saying that a Secretary who neglects to pay 
his mess bills promptly has outlived his usefulness in the 



120 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

camp. Shouting or boisterousness in the mess-hall or the 
throwing of food, being absolutely prohibited by military 
regulations, are sufficient reasons for the immediate removal 
of every offender. It would not seem to be necessary to call 
attention to the fact that no enlisted man is allowed to wear 
his hat in a mess hall. 

The preparation and serving of food is at best, even under 
the most favorable conditions, a somewhat depressing and 
thankless task. The most skilful of cooks is generally too 
tired by the time he has prepared a meal, to partake of it 
himself with any great zest. The expert friend will at mess 
time be among the first to enter the hall without noise or 
hurry when the call sounds, his presence felt before it is 
seen or heard, bringing a ray of sunshine and peace to tired 
and ruffled men, quick to note and comment upon any new 
and attractive features of the meal though they may be but 
few, utterly oblivious to the smell of burnt toast or of 
scorched stew-pans with which the air may be laden. He 
will not forget to thank the one who serves him for every 
favor rendered and to share with him the news of the camp 
and any humor of the interim since last they met — for he 
will soon learn, if he has eyes which see, that when he sits 
down with men to meat, their eyes are opened and they 
know him. 

5. Expert Friendship at the Hospital 
I was sick and ye visited me. — Matt. 25 : 36. 

The war work of the Association being in its essence 
a campaign to help the soldier in all his needs, a campaign; 
to bring him into Christ's fellowship, it is evident that a most 
opportune way in which to minister to him, when he is 
really in need and when our influence may count for last- 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 121 

ing effect, is when he is confined to the hospital. One of the 
most important single pieces of religious work that can be 
done in a camp embracing at least several thousand men 
will be in the hospital. The soldier is in physical need, and 
craves encouragement and attention. He is probably a 
stranger in a new land, an inmate in a ward of non-com- 
municative patients, lonely, and in need of a friend. He has 
infinite spare time. All conditions concur to make him 
receptive to a tactful and kindly visitor. 

Some of the routine services which suggest themselves at 
once to the hospital visitor are the following: distributing 
daily newspapers and Trench and Camp, one to each group 
of four or five men ; magazines placed in each ward from the 
Association library (these can be changed according to need, 
and typewritten lists of the library books placed in each 
ward so that a patient can draw out any book he chooses) ; 
stamps and postcards carried and sold ; stationery distributed 
to each ward master in limited quantities, but supply always 
kept replenished ; special delivery and registered letters, tele- 
phone messages and telegrams sent for patients; toilet arti- 
cles, etc., purchased; personal effects left behind at barracks 
brought over; letters mailed and mail distributed (frequently 
patients' mail is not forwarded from their company head- 
quarters) ; messages delivered, railroad tickets bought, Pull- 
man reservations made, money deposited or placed in safe 
keeping, checks cashed, money orders sold; Testaments and 
religious pamphlets distributed, especially " The Beloved 
Captain," " The Soldiers' Spirit," and " The Success of 
Failure " ; letters written home by dictation from patients 
not permitted to write; and every other reasonable service 
that might be asked. 

There is one great danger in performing all these services 
for the men. They may soon come to consider the Army 



122 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Secretary as a messenger boy who is part of the establish- 
ment, instead of as one of Christ's workers who shuns no 
menial functions that will aid in winning the confidence of 
men. The Secretary must be a witness to the dignity of 
the Association program. He must not dispense his services 
without having the men know that it costs him some effort. 
The men must learn to share each other's newspapers and 
not to expect one apiece. I recall a man, naturally a bit self- 
important, who showed resentment when I asked him one 
day to read the daily paper after his neighbor. But his sub- 
sequent attitude during a long period of illness clearly showed 
that he placed a higher value on the Association's work. 

The expert friend will of course maintain a cordial rela- 
tionship with all the hospital staff. The doctors, nurses, and 
orderlies will soon come to recognize him in his official 
capacity, but he should always be careful to keep out of 
their way when they are treating patients, and also to walk 
quietly at all times. The nurses, having closer association 
with the patients under their care than the doctors, will 
generally be found to be most appreciative of the additional 
services of the Secretary. Especially in cases of critical 
sickness the nurses will frequently see where the Secretary 
can be of service. Their cooperation should be sought 
immediately, but the men will be quick to remark a Secretary 
who is prone to chat unnecessarily with women. We are 
dealing with army men at every point. The hospital ser- 
geants and orderlies quickly respond to efforts to cooperate 
with them. They often have much spare time on their 
hands and are ready to talk freely. The Secretary should 
be prepared to minister to them in any way he can. 

The following principles have at least the merit of having 
worked successfully in actual practice: 

a. Try to make the men see the dignity of your work. 
Only in this way will they really appreciate it. 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 123 

b. Win a patient's confidence gradually; do not thrust 
yourself into his affairs too soon — what is known in army 
slang as " bulling in." The patient may resent many ques- 
tions about his sickness ; ministering to his wants and speak- 
ing a word of encouragement constitute the opening wedge. 
The next day you will probably find that the Lord has pre- 
pared the way for further words. Above all, when a man 
has disclosed his sickness, his needs, and perhaps his life 
story — strike and strike by faith. The man may be well 
tomorrow and out of your reach forever, or he may be 
delirious tomorrow and have passed away the next day. 
Those moments with him are sacred trusts from God. 

c. Keep physically fit for your work, get proper sleep, 
exercise, and peace of mind. Keep cheerful. A yawn, a 
wandering mind, a gloomy countenance, or a weary body 
will defeat your purpose and brand you as a mere instru- 
ment of routine service. You have a chance to be an emis- 
sary of good cheer, a ray of sunshine amid the day's dark- 
ness. As you enter the door of each ward it lies within 
your power to compel a smile or at least to cause brightened 
countenances to spread contagiously from bed to bed. Why? 
Not because of your postage stamps or magazines, but 
because of your humanity and the Christ, who is trying to 
shine through you. 

d. Be as neat in your clothing and appearance as a 
soldier is expected to be, especially any one connected with 
a hospital. Stand erect. 

e. Never sit on a bed beside a patient. This is a viola- 
tion of army hospital rules. You will frequently find a 
chair in which to sit, if you are with one patient any length 
of time. It should be placed near the foot or middle of 
the cot, so that the patient need not look up to see one. 

f. Avoid contact with the hands or body of a patient. 
This can be done perfectly naturally. Remember that you, a 



124 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

visitor daily to many bedsides, can carry infection from one 
patient to another and that you must observe the same care 
about your own person that a nurse would. Wash your 
face and hands and brush your teeth after every visit to the 
hospital to insure yourself against sickness. 

g. Never bring in food (even chewing gum or candy) 
to the hospital. This is definitely contrary to regulation. 
While civilian visitors or occasionally hospital orderlies may 
violate this rule, the Association must concur in it to the 
letter of the law. 

h. Do not encourage criticism of the army doctors, nurses, 
or methods of treatment. The men will be prone to complain 
and to pour their woes into your ears. Discourage their 
criticism and encourage their good-temper and hopefulness. 
Help to make the men more comfortable. First and last, sup- 
port the army organization. In some cases you may quietly 
be able to bring certain matters to the attention of the 
orderlies or nurses, or in a critical case you might recom- 
mend to the nurse that a man's relatives be summoned. If 
better treatment is needed let the authorities bring pres- 
sure to bear, not yourself. 

i. If a patient has a fever, do not talk with him longer 
than a few minutes. Never allow yourself to be repri- 
manded in any way by the authorities. 

j. Encourage a man to write home, and where he is not 
permitted to write, offer to do so for him (at his dictation). 
He will invariably try to make himself out to be better than 
he is to those at home. It is often advisable to ask the 
nurse or orderly, or in some cases the doctor, what his illness 
is and if his family should not know of it. 

k. Be a friend to all, without respect to creed or color. 

1. Do not praise the work of the Association. Answer 
questions about the work, but let the men do the rest. 

m. If a man is asleep or clearly not inclined to conversa- 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 125 

tion, pass him by. Never say too much. Better a few 
cheery words, than a lot that miss their mark. Your open- 
ing words with a man may be a query as to his case, an 
offer of a magazine, a remark about the weather. We have 
God's promise to endow us with wisdom of speech. Be 
your natural self, call upon God for help, and you will 
get your men's confidence. 

n. Do not let yourself become hardened to pain or suffer- 
ing from constant contact with it. Put yourself in the 
other fellow's place and think back over illnesses which you 
have yourself had. 

o. Fulfil all promises, however trivial. Patients have so 
much time to think that a mole-hill becomes a mountain 
after a little brooding. Always carry a pencil and note- 
book and report at the hospital YMCA desk any promises 
made, so that articles may be delivered promptly without 
confusion. 

p. Finally, never forget the romance of your work. You 
are dealing with forty or fifty human lives a day. Put 
yourself in the soldier's place and try to see what each 
particular man with his particular problems and illness 
expects of you. 

6. Expert Friendship with Detached Units and 
the Development Battalions 

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad ; and the 
desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blos- 
som abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; 
the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency 
of Carmel and Sharon: they shall see the glory of Jehovah, 
the excellency of our God. 

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble 
knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, 
fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, with 
the recompense of God; he will come and save you. 



126 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears 
of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man 
leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing; for 
in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the 
desert. 

And the glowing sand shall become a pool, and the 
thirsty ground springs of water: in the habitation of jackals, 
where they lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And 
a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called 
The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; 
but it shall be for the redeemed: the wayfaring men, yea 
fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor 
shall any ravenous beast go up thereon; they shall not be 
found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the 
ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come with singing 
unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: 
they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away. — Isaiah 35 : 1-10. 

Connected with any great encampment numbering thou- 
sands of men are bound to be several permanent or quasi- 
permanent units. There are, first of all, home-service bodies 
like Firemen and Guards. Next might be enumerated spe- 
cialists like Hospital Orderlies and such divisions of the 
Quartermaster Corps as the Ordnance, Remount, Public Util- 
ities, Reclamation, and Service Battalions. Another larger, 
although less easily defined group, is the unfit, classed as the 
Development Battalions or Casual Companies — men inca- 
pacitated because of physical defects, such as flat feet, heart 
murmurs, sprains, or injuries; moral delinquents, like the G. 
U. units and those left behind when their comrades went 
overseas because persistently absent without leave; and, 
finally, those under surveillance, like slackers, enemy aliens, 
and prisoners in the guardhouse. 

None of these men look forward to immediate overseas 
service, with its challenge of danger and opportunity. Some, 
through no fault of their own, have little prospect of ever 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 127 

realizing what is the ambition of every true soldier. They 
are often closely confined by their tasks or their ailments 
and are liable to be neglected if not actually looked down 
upon by the more active units. But let no War Work 
Secretary be misled by such random theories of relative 
merits. The real value of the Association's contribution 
to the Army and Navy will be ultimately determined by 
what it has been able to accomplish with precisely these 
groups of men. 

Where men congregate in large numbers, permanent units 
rendering essential service, though proportionately small, 
can never be neglected without danger. Overshadowed and 
even despised by their comrades in the first division, with 
whom they came to camp and who go on overseas, they 
become the models and set the standards for the rookies of 
the next division, simply because they are on the ground 
when the latter arrive and are all that remains to represent 
the preceding generation. If they have been left to them- 
selves to find questionable amusements outside the camp and 
have become hardened to idealism, they can undo in a few 
weeks the work of months. It should be the business of 
the War Work Secretary to place early at the disposal of 
permanent units all the resources of the Association, under 
the constant supervision and inspiration of men who will 
wear well for an indefinite period and whose ability to sug- 
gest and foster ideals is unquestioned. Perhaps in no place 
will the ministrations of a man of genuine pastoral gifts 
yield more. 

Upon the carrying out of an effective program in the 
Development Battalion will depend largely the establish- 
ment of the Association's claim to be a maker of men and 
morale. Success there will end all doubts among officers 
and enlisted men. Seeing the man healed standing in their 
midst, the critics of the apostolic days were silenced, and 



128 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

so are carpers today. Thrice blessed is that War Work 
Secretary whose privilege it is to open the mouth of the 
dumb through the English classes for the illiterate; or to 
give to the discouraged and gloomy the oil of joy for mourn- 
ing, as he develops a recreational and social program; or 
actually to lay his hands upon men and help them to heal 
themselves through corrective gymnastics. And when, after 
many days of patient and sympathetic supervision, he sees 
the stone which the builders rejected returned to the unit 
from which it came — all aglow with the consciousness of 
having achieved and, for that reason, fit to become the head 
of some corner — he understands better why two simple 
words — Salvation and Saviour — have persisted in human 
thinking for twenty centuries and what Jesus meant when 
He said that there was joy in heaven over the survival of 
the unfit. This is the expert friend's adequate and abiding 
reward. 

7. Expert Friendship on Hikes and Troop Trains 

He steadfastly set his face to go. — Luke 9: 51. 

For I am already being offered, and the time of my depart- 
ure is come. — II Tim. 4 : 6. 

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out 
unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; 
and he went out, not knowing whither he went. — Heb. 11:8. 

As the days of intensive training on this side of the sea 
draw to a close, most regiments take hikes from the camp 
of two or three days' duration to test out equipment and to 
accustom the men to new environment. The camping place 
for each night is generally definitely known in advance and 
most officers are eager to have a Y M C A tent set up and 
ready for business when the dusty, footsore column arrives. 
All the better if the big white edifice, with its flapping can- 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 129 

vas and ice water and neatly arranged writing-tables, looms 
up as a complete surprise to the advancing column. The 
cheer that greets it from a thousand throats will leave no 
doubts as to its service possibilities. 

By enlisting the cooperation of public-spirited citizens in 
the town where the men are to encamp, nearly all the acces- 
sories of a regular YMCA hut can be secured. The town 
hall or grange will generally furnish long wooden tables 
and benches for writing; some one will provide a piano; the 
village store will have oil lanterns and local souvenir postal 
cards, which the men desire above all else; a telephone and 
temporary post office can easily be established. Songs and 
stunts after evening mess under the open sky before the 
camp-fire if the night be fair, or in the big tent, if it rains, 
will keep the men happy and occupied in camp when other- 
wise they might be wandering about an unknown locality 
exposed to temptation. 

The final act of expert friendship which falls to the Army 
Secretary is the troop train service from the cantonment 
to the port of embarkation. Who that has been privileged 
to have a share in that fellowship will ever forget it ! Lis- 
ten to the narrative of one such mission in the early summer 
of 1918: 

" It was -ate afternoon in a certain canionment. The 
metallic click, click, click (in perfect rhythm), of hob- 
nailed boots on a macadam road along a railroad siding filled 
with empty passenger cars became more distinct, announc- 
ing the approach of troops. Soon they swung into view, 
marching with heavy feet, diver-like, bending under fifty- 
pound packs and bristling with guns. They were sturdy 
lads, resembling a moving forest. Brought to a halt by 
the sharp commands of their officers, they were entrained 
with equal military dispatch. Amid the farewells of friends 
by the way, the sobs of the few sweethearts, and the shrieks 
of the engine's whistle, the train rolled away bearing five hun- 



130 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

dred graduates of a nine-months course in a great can- 
tonment university. The sounds of laughter, singing, and 
buffoonery rang through the train until the wee, small 
hours of the morning. All night long a ' Y ' Secretary, 
seemingly ubiquitous, had moved forward and backward, 
now shaking hands, now giving out a magazine or a game; 
here leading a song, or organizing a vaudeville company 
to tour the train from car to car, there dashing into a sta- 
tion on an errand. Like a coat tail, though behind, he 
was always there when needed. A few of the men had 
shown real Yankee ingenuity in trying to make Pullman 
sleepers out of day coaches. Others simply resolved to sit 
it out all night and slumped in their seats three to a section. 
When dawn came at last, the beams of the sun fell upon 
sleepy faces whose owners were splashing cold water into 
them from barrels on the car platforms in a determined ef- 
fort to wake up. Ablutions over, they devoured their last 
rations, shouldered their packs, and when the train stopped 
at the port, swarmed down the steps like bees from hives 
on a hot day. 

" The men found themselves at the foot of a long pier, 
to which an ocean liner was hawsered. The appearance of 
the vessel said, so that he who ran might read, ' We are at 
war.' Its paint ran in solid streaks of black and white, 
which close by looked ridiculous, but from afar camouflaged 
splendidly. The troops in single file started to move like 
a long brown serpent down the pier toward the gangplanks. 
As they advanced, they received tins of coffee and biscuits 
from the white-robed figures wearing red crosses that flitted 
here and there with the rapidity of angels. A few more 
steps brought them to Red Triangle Secretaries who gave 
each man a warm handshake and a Godspeed and wishes 
for a speedy return when the work in hand was over. 
What Secretary will ever forget the plaintive pleas of those 
men as they asked, ' Are you coming with us, Mr. " Y " 
Man ? ' A few strides more and they stood before their 
commanding officer, who checked their names on his list. 
Then they crossed the planks, leaving behind the land they 
loved, to embark on the finest Argosy the world has seen. 

" They descended for a moment below decks, then reap- 
peared without guns and packs. One by one they gath- 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 131 

ered on the deck. Soon they covered the deck. They cov- 
ered the guns. They swarmed over the forecastle. They 
climbed up the rigging; they crawled to the nest. They 
swung on the railings; they plastered the prow. They 
spread everywhere like the locusts in Pharaoh's vineyards. 
Officers and non-combatant passengers crowded against the 
rail of the middle deck. The upper deck had become a 
solid blue like the heaven above it, made so by the dresses 
of the hundreds of nurses who had gathered there. From 
aloft the vessel's captain gazed down upon the scene with 
a quiet smile. The eyes of the lookouts, hawklike, could be 
seen from their little houses at the ends of the observation 
bridge. Suddenly, spontaneously, the throng began to sing, 
odd snatches of song, unorganized, yet suggestive of a choir. 
And what a choir it might have been, with the voices of 
fifteen hundred soldiers and two hundred nurses mingling 
with the sounds of the winds in the halyards and the waves 
of the sea ! How exquisite was the cathedral, the ship, the 
sea, the clouds, the sky ! And what an audience ! God ! 

" The great multitude, seething with life, began to cheer. 
It cheered for the nurses. It cheered for the ' Y.' It 
cheered for the Red Cross. A ' Y ' Secretary appeared at 
the edge of the pier on a raised platform. Some one saw 
him and shouted, ' Give us a song, Mr. " Y " man.' ' Sure,' 
said he, ' let's try, " Where Do We Go From Here, Boys? " ' 
How they did sing ! What a pep and what a gusto, truly 
American ! * Are we down hearted ? ' asked the Secretary. 
' No,' they replied. ' Then sing " Pack Up Your Troubles." ' 
For the moment at least every fear of ' subs/ every dread 
of mud or cooties, every bit of sadness at parting had disap- 
peared into the ' old kit bag ' and the order of the day had 
become ' smile, smile, smile.' In marked contrast to the 
singing of the men, the nurses began singing softly. They 
sang an old, old song, rich in harmony and sentiment. With 
the song scarcely off their lips, a voice exclaimed, " What's 
the matter with the nurses?" The 'Y* Secretary, moved 
by the tender strain, suggested that they sing ' There's A 
Long, Long Trail A-Winding.' The idea struck fire and 
a flame of song burst forth from the throng. They sang 
slowly, thoughtfully, as though each man saw a long aisle, 
lined with smiling friends and down its center a beautiful 



132 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

dream girl walking toward him. She leaned upon her 
father's arm and there was a love light in her eyes and — 
and — Just then some lad, wiser then he knew, dispelled 
this mood as the sun scatters the morning mists by crying, 
'Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.' Then^the bunch took it 
up and sang it like a pack of hounds after a fox. The smil- 
ing Secretary, with a bright idea, said, ' Let's change that 
song a little bit. Sing, " Hail, Hail, the Girls Are Here." ' 
Then away the voices went on another chase. The nurses 
had a real comeback in the form of a surprise. When the 
singing had died down (and without flinching) they retorted, 
' Hail, Hail, the Boys Are Here.' 

" A call was given for ' Dad.' A thousand voices took 
up the cry, ' A speech from Pop. We want to see Dad.' 
The beloved Secretary of ' Y ' 29 stepped forward and stood 
silently for a moment with feet squared, jaw set, and 
clenched fist extended. A cheer went up, ' That's the 
stuff, Dad.' Then the little man with the gray-streaked 
hair began to speak. ' Boys/ he shouted, ' you're going to 
win the war.' (Cries of 'You bet,' 'You've said it, Dad.') 
He began again. ' When I pray about this war, I pray 
with fists clenched.' (Cheers.) 'I depend on you to win 
this war.' ('Trust us, Dad — we'll win.') 'Go over the 
seas and over the top and drive back the Hun/ 
(Applause.) 'You must not stop until you have reached 
Berlin. My prayers and love go with you, my boys/ 

" The roar that followed the speech left no room for 
doubt of the love of the boys for the Expert Friend who 
had served them so faithfully, or of their endorsement of 
his sentiments. ' Now, men/ said the master of ceremon- 
ies, ' We of " Y " 29 can't go over seas with you. But the 
Red Triangle goes.' (Cheers.) 'I present to you two 
men who sail with you to France. Men, three cheers for 
the Transport Secretaries.' The two Secretaries, dressed 
in the military overseas uniform, bowed and smiled at the 
hearty welcome extended by the soldiers. ' Now for antiph- 
onal singing/ said the 'Y' man. The nurses began sing- 
ing, ' Onward, Christian Soldiers ' ; the soldiers replied, 
' Marching as to War/ The nurses sang, ' With the Cross 
of Jesus ' ; the response came, ' Going on before.' The 



OUTSIDE THE Y M C A BUILDING 133 

upper deck, ' Christ, the Royal Master ' ; the main deck, 
* Leads against the Foe ' ; ' Forward into Battle ' ; ' See His 
Banners Go ' ; united chorus, 

" ' Onward, Christian soldiers I 
Marching as to war, 
With the cross of Jesus, 
Going on before/ 

" Truly those choristers expressed a faith never surpassed 
by Crusaders or Cromwell's Ironsides. They revealed 
America's greatest contribution to the world war. Finally, 
intuitively, all stood at attention. They began to sing 
the simple and stately ' America.' Of faith in liberty and 
faith in God they sang as only those can who love both. 

" O, blessed among ships ! You bear a priceless bur- 
den. Upon your decks are the best of our brothers and sis- 
ters. Guard them well upon the deep. And you, captain, 
hold the wheel with steady hand and clear brain. You, 
lookouts, fail not now to see the periscope or the torpedo's 
path. O, Thou Mighty God, restrain the tempest; frus- 
trate the wiles of lurking devils undersea. And you, voyag- 
ing crusaders, know that whether you win or lose, live or 
die, we believe in you and that for which you stand. 
Remember that no misfortune can destroy our faith in you; 
no toil withhold our prayer for you. Through you we came 
to know the spirit of 19 18 and we thank you for it. For 
whatever fear you had, you hid it. Whatever grief you 
had, you mastered it. You showed us only courage and con- 
fidence. We saw your originality, your playfulness, your 
faith, and we knew democracy was safe for the world and the 
world would be saved for democracy. Save the world from 
further woe, then come back to us, our own ! 

" Three Secretaries, with heads together and hearts full, 
gave three cheers for ' The Bunch,' then hurried to their 
train." 



CHAPTER IV 

EXPERT FRIENDSHIP OUTSIDE THE CAMP 
CIRCLE 

i. Expert Friendship in the Executive Office 

And God hath set some in the church . . . governments. 
— I Cor. 12: 28. 

Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife ; and 
some also of good will: the one do it of love . . . but the 
other proclaim Christ of faction, not sincerely, thinking to 
raise up affliction. . . . — Phil. 1: 15-17. 

Love . . . taketh not account of evil. — I Cor. 13:5. 

" Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people and 
the possession of it is the great secret of personal influence. 
You will find, if you think of it for a moment, that the 
people who influence you are the people who believe in you. 
In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but in that 
atmosphere they expand and find encouragement and educa- 
tive fellowship. . . . And if we try to influence or elevate 
others, we shall soon see that our success is in proportion 
to their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of 
another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man 
has lost. Our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope 
and pattern of what he may become." — Drummond. 

It is an inevitable result of advancement to leadership in 
all spheres of human effort that men must forfeit close per- 
sonal contact of a certain sort with their former associates. 
The very thing which has qualified them to assume the new 
relationship — their tried ability to mingle with and influence 
their fellows — makes it unavoidable that, instead of practic- 

134 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 135 

ing that in which they have achieved success, they should 
henceforth be set apart for the larger task of telling other 
men how it was done. But scores of good men, when 
advanced to leadership, have failed because they did not 
grasp the fact that a personal ministry of some sort to men 
can never be neglected without danger. In the compara- 
tive quiet and isolation of his new environment the true 
leader of men never forgets this essential truth. He sets 
himself doggedly to the task not merely of realizing the few 
opportunities for personal contact of the old type which are 
still offered, but also of discovering new and unknown varie- 
ties at every turn of the road. 

Environment, tradition, personal inclination, all militate 
against the realization of this ideal. The lure of the desk 
with its order and system, the riling cases and card indices 
with the call of the incomplete, the incessant ring of the tele- 
phone, the necessity of extended conference with individuals 
and committees — all would seem to justify our failure to 
take a part in the only work that really counts, the befriend- 
ing of men. It is easy to produce a hundred reasons to 
explain why such a work cannot be done. But the fact 
remains that the spirit of any given cantonment as a whole 
depends almost entirely on how much of this particular work 
the executive heads themselves are actually doing. 

Not buttonholing men in a professional way and asking 
them the state of their souls, but the complete spiritualizing 
of every human contact — this is the work of expert friend- 
ship in the executive office. The variety and novelty of the 
opportunities are what give to this ministry its zest and 
romance. Visitors come first of all to the executive office 
by instinct, and indeed, in many well-regulated camps, by 
official order. Some cantonments have a special Y M C A 
information booth near the gate. Our entire work will in all 
probability be mainly judged by the Secretary on duty there, 



136 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

whether he be patient, alert, and friendly, or yawning, 
sprawling, and listless. Did he anticipate the needs of 
bewildered men and women? Had he a map of the grounds 
neatly marked to point out the visitor's destination? Did 
he foresee difficulties which might arise and present an 
adequate solution of them? Did he proceed on the prin- 
ciple that most strangers who come to camp do not merely 
desire to look over the geography, but wish to see the camp, 
and that this requires an interpreter? 

Within the four walls of any executive office lies the 
inspiring ■ possibility of spiritualizing the daily corre- 
spondence. How many a suggestion in a letter from anxious 
father or mother or pastor, under the tender guidance of an 
expert friend, has gone first forward to the object of its 
solicitude and then back to the source from which it came, 
to enrich and remake both parties. What a ministry of 
expert friendship lies ready to be released in the spiritualizing 
of personal interviews — the interpretation of the real 
essence of some phase of our work to the newspaper reporter, 
the revelation of guilelessness to suspicious people, the state- 
ment of truth which cuts to the core to those who are con- 
cealing propaganda under the guise of service, the message 
of Christian unity to cooperating agencies ! To perhaps no i 
other group of men is given so great an opportunity to justify 
the necessary ways and laws of the encampment to visitors, 
especially when these cause the latter some personal hard- 
ship — not assisting people to evade regulations, but helping 
them to see why they should not be evaded for the common i 
good of all. 

A ministry of such genuine and invincible good will in the 
executive office must in time attract to it officers and can- 
didates for future officerships. The service in the huts is 
necessarily largely appropriated by the men in the ranks. 
In the executive office no embarrassment for commissioned 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 137 

officers is likely to arise. If the administration building is 
the abiding place of expert friends whose ability to make 
personal contacts and meet men's deepest needs has not 
become atrophied through disuse, its rooms are bound to 
witness the sowing of seed which will later spring up and 
bear fruit a hundredfold. For in the final analysis a company 
of soldiers is what its captain is, and he who has interpreted 
Jesus aright to an army or navy officer and has helped him 
to gird himself with the armor of righteousness has done 
probably the most important and far-reaching single piece of 
work that can be accomplished in an army or navy camp. 

2. Expert Friendship with Civilian Help 

What God hath cleansed, make thou not common. — Acts 
10:15. 

And yet unto me hath God showed that I should not 
call any man common or unclean. — Acts 10:28. 

About any navy or army camp one will find certain civil- 
ians acting as plumbers, carpenters, telegraph operators, 
waiters, and in many other capacities. These men generally 
feel strange and lonely in an aggregation of uniforms. 
Very often they afford an exceptional opportunity for prac- 
tical religious service. 

A gang of plumbers, electricians, and carpenters at one 
of our cantonments became members of the Pocket Testa- 
ment League and started regular church attendance through 
the friendly touch of some of the Secretaries. 

One night, after I had dictated a telegram over the wire 
to an absent Secretary, the operator asked, " Is he gone for 
good? I hope not, for he means an awful lot to this camp." 
I explained that he was only away because of the death of 
a near relative, and asked how he came to know him. He 
replied that his only association with him had come through 



138 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

the dictation of telegrams over the wire. The Secretary 
some way had caught the successful touch; he understood 
what it meant to be a hard-pressed telegraph operator, and 
something in his tones and accents and the tenor of the 
telegrams had so attracted the operator that he felt a per- 
sonal loss at the thought of this man, whom he had never 
seen, leaving camp. One of the best ways to get an index 
of a man's character is to inquire of the telephone girl as to 
his courtesy and patience. 

For the Christian worker there are no special manners 
for special people, but the ones who really succeed are 
the ones who practice courtesy toward all, showing to 
every one whom they touch what it means to have the 
grace of Christ dwelling in them richly. 

3. Expert Friendship on Railroad Trains 

And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great author- 
ity .. . who had come to Jerusalem . . . was returning 
and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet 
Isaiah. And the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and 
join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ^ran to him . . . 
And he besought Philip to come up and sit with him 
. . . And Philip opened his mouth . . . and preached unto 
him Jesus. — Acts 8 : 27-35. 

Army and Navy Secretaries, especially executives, are 
frequently called upon to travel by regular civilian passenger 
trains. It is with a decided feeling of relief that one leaves 
behind him the camp, with its monotonous setting of 
unpainted pine buildings and khaki- or blue-clad men, 
and settles down on a comfortable red or green plush seat 
in a passenger car, which is filled with men and women in 
many-colored civilian attire. " Here at last," he reasons 
to himself, " I may relax. Here I am free from inspection 
and scrutiny. Here, for the brief hours at least of the jour- 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 139 

ney, I have no responsibility, physical, mental, moral, or 
spiritual, for my mates." 

Hardly has he become established in his seat when the 
quick, intuitive glance of a white-haired woman across the 
aisle rests on the red triangle on his coat sleeve — the same 
red triangle she has noted so often on the letters from her 
son in France, and during the entire journey her eye comes 
back again and again to the triangle and the Secretary, with 
a very evident sense of security and of personal ownership. 
A little boy down the aisle, after a few moments of awed 
hero-worship, leans over to his mother and spells out in an 
audible whisper the letters Y M C A. The man in the seat 
ahead, a carpenter to judge from his dress and equipment, 
turns about and confides to you that his boy has developed 
by leaps and bounds since he went into the service and that 
he hasn't missed the letter home one week since he left — 
letters just as wholesome and frank as he was when he went 
away. The Secretary is not long in disabusing himself of 
the notion that he is no longer under observation and that it 
makes little difference whether he is the first man in the 
car to offer to share his seat with a stranger when each 
seat in the car has at least one occupant, or to double up 
with some one else in order that a couple of friends may 
sit together in his seat, or to stand that some tired woman 
may sit. If he does not do things like these promptly and 
instinctively, he will soon become conscious, if he is at all 
observant, that nearly all the occupants in the car are watch- 
ing him intently to see how their personal representative will 
act. 

Scattered through the car are probably four or five sol- 
diers or sailors in olive drab, or navy blue. The natural 
inference might be that here will be found little opportunity 
for the practice of expert friendship. But nothing could be 
further from the facts. A soldier or sailor in a civilian 



140 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

train is always in an abnormal situation. When men in the 
service travel normally, they proceed either by troop trains 
or transports, which contain no civilians. A uniformed man 
on a civilian passenger train belongs almost invariably to 
one of three groups : he is either going to or returning from 
home, in which case his heart is very tender; or he is being 
transferred or on leave far from home, with no certain 
knowledge of his destination or the future, in which case 
he is very lonely; or he has overstayed his leave or is absent 
without leave, in which case he is generally penitent. 

And supposing that there is not a single soldier or sailor 
in your car. How about any man between the ages of eight- 
een and forty-five in the train? He is either anticipating 
the draft in a few weeks and is hungry for counsel and 
ideals, or he has been rejected for physical or domestic 
reasons and is eating his heart out in restlessness, because 
he sees men of his age running greater risks than himself. 
He wants peace and the assurance that he is not a slacker. 

It is one of the remarkable things about the psychology 
of travel that perfect strangers will open their hearts to 
one another on a train without the slightest reserve. This 
is due in part to the fact that the environmental conditions 
for a personal interview are ideal. There is no third party 
present. Railroad seats normally hold but two, and the 
noise of the train in motion isolates the couple as completely 
from, those in front and behind as if they were separated 
by sound-proof walls. 

What, then, is the nature of the ministry that may be 
rendered to men in the service by the Army or Navy Secre- 
tary en route? Naturally, first of all comes the ministry 
of personal self-revelation, which every condition favors 
and which invites an answering confidence. Then should 
follow wise guidance as to how to preserve the home ties, 
or where to go in a strange city. Those who have broken 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 141 

military regulations should come to see why they should 
not deceive, but should take the punishment for their offences 
like men. Those who have procured illegal or forged passes 
should be shown the wrong to others involved. At no time 
can wisely chosen literature inculcating high ideals be used 
more tellingly. Travel is tedious and railroad trains and 
depots are the great reading rooms of humanity as a whole. 
" The Beloved Captain," " The Soldier's Spirit," " The Lost 
Purity Restored," " Friend or Enemy," " The Honor 
Legion," " The Success of Failure," " Soldiers of France," 
" The Man without a Country," can be slipped into your 
seatmate's hand as you rise to part from him, or, if you 
secure his address, can be mailed to him the next day. 
Rarely will the Secretary fail to receive a letter of apprecia- 
tion in reply. Such a simple note as the following from a 
boy of eighteen in civilian clothes, just returning from his 
enlistment in the Navy and invited to share a Secretary's 
seat, reveals a situation freighted with possibilities for man- 
hood because of a seed sown in an hour's ride : 

Dear Mr. 



I want to thank you for the Testament which you were 
so kind to send me. I think a great deal of it and will put 
Mother's picture in it before I go away. 

Very sincerely yours, 



The ministry to draftees in special trains on their initial 
journey to the cantonment is of an entirely different, though 
no less important, sort. Here men move from, seat to seat. 
All privacy is gone and each car becomes virtually a Y M C A 
hut on wheels. The fourfold program of the Association 
is often carried out in its entirety on a long trip. The value 
of the services of the Railroad Y M C A on such occasions 
cannot be overestimated. 



142 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

4. Expert Friendship with the Ford Car 

And God hath set some . . . helps.— I Cor. 12:28. 

And by chance a certain priest was going down that way : 
and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And 
in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and 
saw him, passed by on the other side. — Luke 10:31, 32. 

I was a stranger and ye took me in. — Matt. 25 : 35. 

Let love of the brethren continue. Forget not to show 
love unto strangers; for thereby some have entertained 
angels unawares. — Heb. 13 : 1, 2. 

The coming of the automobile has changed for the better 
many phases of modern life. It has bridged the gulf 
between the country and the city. It has transformed many 
homes. Where formerly the husband spent his evening at 
the club or saloon while the wife and children remained 
dejectedly at home, the whole family now takes its recrea- 
tion together out-of-doors. In the business world speed 
and efficiency are everywhere realized. But in one respect 
we have lost. The old hospitality of the highway is gone. 
Without realizing it, we have all become priests and Levites 
as we speed down the Jerusalem-Jericho boulevard in high 
power cars, and almost perforce we pass by on the other 
side. For automobiles are set up on the basis of express 
trains which make no stops except the scheduled ones; they 
are not like the slow-going buggies of former days, with 
comfortable draft horses plodding on ahead, ready to be 
flagged at any spot where the driver discerned a weary trav- 
eler making his way on foot under the hot sun. The driver 
by wheel of two decades ago was almost of necessity a con- 
tinual host, revealing himself to the stranger he had taken 
in. The driver by wheel of today is so self-centered a 
recluse that he must even be numbered and tagged and blow 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 143 

his own horn vigorously to insure identification as he whirls 
past in a cloud of dust. 

He who drives a Ford car for the Army or Navy Y M C A 
over the long stretches of well-paved roads within or to and 
from a camp has a delicate and important contribution to 
make to the ministry to men. He will, of course, never for- 
get a friendly greeting to the military police as he passes. 
His service can never be promiscuous even when his car is 
practically empty. It is no part of his task merely to cart 
from one part of the grounds to the other able-bodied sol- 
diers who impose on his good nature because of laziness 
or to escape paying the small charge for transportation 
when a regular jitney service is provided. But to him in 
whom dwells the spirit of discernment will constantly come 
opportunities for real service, in which sometimes the very 
issues of life and death are involved — service to mothers 
arrived too late at barracks to have the final parting with 
sons about to embark within a few moments on troop trains 
a mile or two distant — a lift to soldiers or sailors detained 
by inspection too long to catch on foot the train home after 
weeks of separation from loved ones — the trip to the hos- 
pital or to the nearest station, often in the small hours of 
the morning when a precious human life hangs in the bal- 
ance. He who returns alone from such a mission in the 
darkness, with nothing but the rapid heartbeat of his faith- 
ful little engine to break the silence of the night, as he 
speeds along mile after mile of the lonely country road 
with here and there a dim drowsy light flickering on the 
horizon, invariably senses at his side in the car a grace 
of being finer than himself, invisible but no less real, and 
understands to the full the meaning of those oft-spoken 
words: " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, 
even these least, ye did it unto me." 



144 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 



5. Expert Friendship Entering the Fourth Week 

Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee 
with her sons, worshipping him, and asking a certain thing 
of him. And he said unto her, What wouldest thou? She 
saith unto him, Command that these my two sons may sit, 
one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in thy 
kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what 
ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to 
drink? They say unto him, We are able. He saith unto 
them, My cup indeed ye shall drink: but to sit on my right 
hand, and on my left hand, is not mine to give; but it is 
for them for whom it hath been prepared of my Father; — 
Matt. 20 : 20-23. 

Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping 
where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst 
not scatter; and I was afraid, and went away and hid thy 
talent in the earth : lo, thou hast thine own. — Matt. 25 : 24, 25. 

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return 
from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will 
go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall 
be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will 
I die, and there will I be buried: Jehovah do so to me, and 
more also, if aught but death part thee and me. — Ruth 
1 : 16, 17. 

Experienced War Work Secretaries have come to regard 
the beginning of the fourth week of service in an army or 
navy hut as the crucial time in the lives of most new men 
entering upon the war work of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. Very few escape this testing period and not 
all by any means pass through it successfully. Careful 
observation shows that the professional mortality among 
Secretaries in any well-organized and effective center of 
war work is about one in three. In other words, not over 
sixty or at most seventy per cent, of the men who pass the 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 145 

rigid tests of the personnel committee are able to drink the 
cup of actual service. 

The motives which impel men to enter the war work of 
the Young Men's Christian Association are varied. In 
nearly all there is some patriotic sentiment, a vague, inarticu- 
late desire to help, unquestionably honest, but without much 
real appreciation of the actual cost of service. Some men 
look upon the adventure as a chance for a change, an escape 
from burdens that have become monotonous, an opportunity 
for a summer camping expedition out-of-doors. To others, 
the farewell in the home town at the church or club, when 
the wrist-watch was presented and the great sacrifice to be — 
not yet made — was extolled to the skies, was the zenith of 
experience; the later work in camp was an anticlimax. To 
others, the day when they first put on a uniform and could 
at least pose as men in some sort of service before the folks 
at home, was the goal of supreme ambition. Such are the 
men who have desired to sit on the right hand and on the 
left of the King in his glory, but who are brought face to 
face at the end of the third week of actual service with the 
disquieting question: "Are ye able to drink the cup that 
I am about to drink?" 

By the end of the third week the novelty of the service 
in an army and navy hut has worn off. Poetry has grad- 
ually changed into prose. The cold of winter or the heat 
of summer, with its blinding dust, has become accentuated. 
Daily policing grows more monotonous. The constant grind 
of the graphophone has worn in upon one's nerves. Pos- 
sibly an aggravating grippe cold has developed. The sec- 
ond or third inoculation looms large ahead. The nights 
seem amazingly short, especially when the fact is taken 
into consideration that a large part of them is spent in try- 
ing to find a soft spot on the excelsior mattress. The set- 
ting-up exercises before daylight seem especially designed to 



146 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

discover new muscles out of practice. One can no longer got 
when and where he chooses without imposing an extra bur- 
den on some of the small staff of colleagues. The food is: 
wholesome and simple, surprisingly so, but one is made* 
painfully conscious of how much he had come to depend 
at home upon certain so-called luxuries which do not appear 
in army diet, and he questions seriously what the exact 
dividing line between luxuries and essentials really is. 

By the end of the third week, most new Secretaries, liv- 
ing for the first time in their lives under constant observa- 
tion, become thoroughly convinced of the truth of at least 
one verse of Scripture, that " there is nothing covered up; 
that shall not be revealed nor hid that shall not be known," 
especially in its bearing upon their own individual weak- 
nesses. The selfish man cannot share his quarters with 
others in camp with any better grace than he did at home; 
he helps himself at mess without regard to the size ofi 
portions left for others. The man of weak will power is 
unable to rise or go to meals on time. The careless man 
finds the key to the camp automobile in his pocket when hei 
is away on his furlough. The terrible and humiliating truth 
begins to dawn upon those who for years have lived lives of 
conscious but well-concealed weakness that a crisis does not 
make a man. It only reveals him. He is in camp, after 
trying in vain to hide his real self for three weeks, just 
exactly what he was before coming. 

Nor does it take an honest man more than three weeks 
to discover that he must review the whole question of his 
active participation in the war from a new angle. Here are 
men of his own age, many of them married and with chil- 
dren, ready to face greater physical dangers than he is pre- 
pared to face. If he be a divinity student or a clergyman he 
will certainly find in the ranks of the Army or Navy num- 
bers of his own profession who have voluntarily waived 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 147 

exemption. If active service is out of the question for phy- 
sical or domestic reasons, he is challenged some morning 
by the sudden departure of a member of his staff for Y M 
C A work overseas and upon inquiry he learns that his own 
excuses for not going are not so compelling as those that 
could have been advanced by the colleague who has actually 
gone. And simply because his attitude toward these all- 
important questions is not settled, his work lacks power. He 
is eating his heart out in the valley of indecision. 

This experience is normal. Every normal Secretary is 
bound to pass through it early in his term of service. The 
only cause for anxiety is which of the two paths that lie 
open before him he will take. Thrice blest is he who at the 
hour of crisis has some expert friend among the older mem- 
bers of the staff, who is able to point out to him the true way. 

The first of the two paths is the path of the one-talent 
man. He can give up the battle and refuse to take the cup. 
" Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where 
thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not 
scatter; and I was afraid, and went away and hid thy talent 
in the earth: lo, thou hast thine own." Criticism of 
superiors, exploitation of the defects of others, cynicism 
regarding spiritual values in the work or the value of self- 
sacrifice, constant attempts to secure advancement because 
the present job is not big enough, frequent bickering about 
salary and overstaying leaves of absence — these are now 
well-known and easily-detected symptoms in the psychology 
of many workers who were brought face to face with reality 
and turned aside powerless. When men begin to advocate 
war work heresies like the following, they are becoming set 
in the mould of the one-talent man: 

That routine and executive work can be substituted for 
personal evangelism; 



148 THE PRACTICE OF FRIENDSHIP 

That a janitor or detail of soldiers should be brought in toe 
do our dirty work; 

That it is permissible to go unshaven or untidy in an: 
army camp; 

That it is permissible to rise late ; 

That one can get along without the Morning Watch ; 

That the commonplace cannot be glorified: that is, that the: 
selling of stamps or money orders, the checking of valuables, 
and the care of writing tables cannot be made a means to 
the salvation of souls. 

The other pathway is the pathway of complete and unre- 
served self-abandon to the highest call, no matter whither it 
leads or what pet individual whim must go. With honest 
recognition and confession of one's own weaknesses, 
revealed though it may have been by a fire that burns and 
hurts, real manhood links itself up to the lives about it clad 
in khaki or navy blue in a solemn dedication of itself: 
"Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I 
will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: 
the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part 
thee and me." It pins its faith in simple trust on the great 
paradox of our Lord, " Whosoever would save his life shall 
lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
gospel's shall save it." Its only explanation in justifica- 
tion of a course which the world may call quixotic is the 
promise of Jesus: "There is no man that hath left house, 
or wife, or brethren, or parents, or children, for the king- 
dom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more 
in this time, and in the world to come eternal life." Listen 
to Alan Seeger as he speaks of his comrades-in-arms: 

" Purged, with the life they left, of all 
That makes life paltry and mean and small, 



OUTSIDE THE CAMP CIRCLE 149 

In their new dedication charged 

With something heightened, enriched, enlarged, 

That lends a light to their lusty brows, 

And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet 

These are the men that have taken vows, 

These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, — 

These are the men that are moved no more 

By the will to traffic and grasp and store 

And ring with pleasure and wealth and love 

The circles that self is the center of. . . . 

Comrades in arms then — friend or foe — 
That trod the perilous, toilsome trail 
Through a world of ruin and blood and woe 
In the years of the great decision — hail ! . . . 

There was a stately drama writ 

By the hand that peopled the earth and air 

And set the stars in the infinite 

And made night gorgeous and morning fair, 

And all that had sense to reason knew 

That bloody drama must be gone through. . . . 

Some sat and watched how the action veered, 

Waited, profited, trembled, cheered — 

We saw not clearly nor understood, 

But yielding ourself to the master hand, 

Each in his part as best he could, 

We played it through as the author planned." 

Can the Christian worker make any less complete dedica- 
tion of himself to the common cause of country and of God? 



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